Never Tell All You Know
by AgapeErosPhilia
Summary: Continuing the story of Evelyn Trevelyan, Cullen, Solas and the rest after the events at the end of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Their leader is losing herself to her inner Inquisitor with nowhere to turn. Solas likely holds the key, but will not be found. When the elves come to her for help, she hopes to find both answers. It will take time - does she have it? Complete.
1. Cold Feet

Evelyn Trevelyan, Herald of Andraste, Inquisitor, slayer of dragons and magisterial darkspawn, stood on her wintry balcony in bare feet. She huffed a breath out into the cold morning and wondered again at her own contrary nature. Josephine would have her head if she fell ill right before the Marquis of Wherever came by for tea and fawning. Leliana, well, she hadn't said anything directly but the look in her eyes accompanying a gift of fluffy socks had certainly been pointed. Evelyn knew she should be afraid of a spymaster so good that even her boss couldn't spot the eyes around her, but in truth it made her feel safe. Mostly safe. She just hoped they had the decency to look away when she was in bed.

She lifted her foot and wiggled her toes deliberately, then gestured to the socks sitting on the balcony railing. She grinned. Let them take that back to their Nightingale. Bare toes on cold stone was the one small rebellion left to her in these days of formality, and she wouldn't let it go easily.

A noise from inside the room made her turn, her hand dropping slightly for a dagger that wasn't there. Cullen leaned against the doorframe, sensibly dressed in furs and thick-soled shoes. Evelyn raised her chin as he studied her. His eyes travelled from her feet to her hand, still hovering over an invisible blade, then slid to the socks perched next to her. He sighed and stepped back into the room, reappearing a minute later with a large chair. Once it was settled back against the wall, he sat down and leaned back, one eyebrow raised.

Evelyn laughed and gave an exaggerated bow. "Very clever of you, Ser. You trap me with my own weakness." She walked over and dropped gracelessly into his lap, lifting her feet up and leaning sideways into his chest. "You've clearly been taking Wicked Grace lessons from Varric."

He reached down to rub her feet, slashing a look at her when he touched them. Her eyes dropped. "It should not be necessary to trap a person into self-preservation, Your Worship. A woman with this much power should conceivably have a little sense."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have voted for me, then. If a leader lacks sense, what does that say for her loyal followers?"

She felt him smile. "That they are love-struck fools, in one case anyway. And I would not change that." He kissed her head. "In truth this is about my own self-preservation as much as it is yours. I can't take another session around the war table with accusing eyes. Josephine keeps slipping invitations to Orlesian balls into my things, and Leliana doesn't have to say a word to a man to make him sweat. As spymaster she oversees my life, and as Divine she oversees my soul. Not pleasant to have all that staring at you."

"Why would they be threatening you? I'm the one they're upset with." She looked up, meeting his eyes again.

"As your lover and military commander, they presume I have some level of influence over your actions," Cullen said, chuckling. "More fools they."

"Yet I sit here, happy with warm feet, without a single shot fired. You undersell your tactical genius, as always." Evelyn drew him into a kiss, running her thumb across his cheek before falling back. "I'll tell them both you've discharged your duty honorably."

He wrapped his arms around her. "And I'll make sure those socks get lost somewhere useful very soon. I understand your need to fight against us, to retain some of Evelyn in the Inquisitor. I'll be her champion whenever I can."

She stayed silent, cursing his intuition. His words were truer than he knew. Since the end of Corypheus, Evelyn seemed to grow fainter every day. She'd always believed legends lost their true selves by the tales of others, long after they'd passed on from the world. Tricks of memory, knowledge of the deeds but not the person, and the need of people for heroes all slowly eroded the life, like water running over a statue until the features were gone. Despite Cassandra's optimism, Evelyn had known her ultimate story would bear little resemblance to the person she was. She was content to be idealized, even deified, in death.

A colder vision curved its shape around her future now. She felt herself changing. Every night stole another piece of who she was and replaced it with hardness, legend. She called it the Inquisitor, and it was changing who she was. This world mattered less, only existing for her manipulation. It was harder to remember the people, the small emotions, the little rebellions and joys. The Inquisitor sought to consume her, fully alive, and she was losing the fight. The small ball of her humanity would continue to shrink until she became all symbol, walking and talking and breathing but no longer living.

Her dreams had shown her that much. An empty shell with her face, a woman of stone speaking to multitudes, a flower sustained in ice.

She'd wondered if this was how it always was, to be a legend alive. She wondered if the elven gods had felt this ebbing of their consciousness until nothing remained. She looked for signs of this inner transformation in Hawke and the Hero of Fereldan, two other women who lived their own myths, but they seemed so real as to be painful. Hawke grabbed the world around her and cajoled it into shape, joking as she twisted. Her positivity was blinding; she was all foreground. And the Hero was dangerous, a woman who was no less warrior for being Queen. The core of her was molten and so very human. Leliana said that she'd been that way even before her still-mysterious trip. Evelyn had felt the anger simmering behind the precise etiquette, like a buried fuse, and knew no one would ever make the mistake of forgetting who she really was underneath the crown. Not twice anyway.

No, they weren't fading as she was. They wore their legends on the outside of themselves. Even if they were acting, they wouldn't have been able to resist acknowledging her as a kindred spirit. So she had no one to ask. No one who wouldn't dismiss her or panic. Cole welcomed the change, felt closer to her the less human she became. Morrigan had taken the wisdom of the Well and hidden herself away and Solas…

She pushed herself up, needing movement. To prove she was a person, capable of love, she walked inside to pace on the rug. Cullen followed and circled around her desk. She saw tension in his face and braced herself. He was putting distance between them, to isolate her for an interrogation. _He really is a brilliant tactician_.

After a few minutes, he leaned against the desk and spoke. "So, will you tell me about the dreams?"

She stopped pacing and sighed. "You know?"

"You've woken up on edge for weeks, searching for weapons that aren't there, ready to fight or run at every noise." He rubbed a hand across his eyes. "I'm no stranger to nightmares, Evelyn. You don't see me as a threat, but clearly you're expecting something. And just as clearly you don't trust me with it.

"I don't ask you to, if you think it's best. You're the Inquisitor. You've walked places and seen things I will never know, never want to experience. Your connection to the Fade is a mystery to me, and you are the best judge of what I can and can't help with. But I wanted you to know. That I know, I mean. You shouldn't carry it alone."

He stared at her steadily, earnest and so very far away. It would have been so easy to spin a lie across inches, with her hands touching him, reassuring him, changing meanings. A lie would never survive this distance, and he knew it. But he didn't know the Inquisitor inside of her, waiting to break this love. The space between them was too much for that truth. She settled for half of it.

"You're right, I'm having dreams. Not always nightmares, not even always things I remember, but they confuse me, leave me on edge. I'm not always me inside of them. I didn't tell you, not because I don't trust you, but because even you can't protect me from dreams. And while I'm no mage and can't be possessed, I know how you feel about the Fade and what can come out of it."

She didn't add that the Veil seemed thinner, stretchy around her even in waking. It wanted to open and pull her back through. She tried not to think about what might be searching for her, hungry for the scent of the anchor in her hand. Better to cross that bridge when it was on fire around them, probably.

"I think Solas would know what's happening, but Leliana says she's still found no trace of him," she said. Her hands formed fists at her sides, and she made no attempt to hide the anger in her voice. Anger at Solas was safe. It was both human and symbol and could coexist without conflict. He'd left both parts of her alone.

Cullen nodded. "I've received the same reports from my squads across areas where we have a presence. No signs. Either he's a master of illusion, which seems impossible, or he's outside of our influence. Meaning Tevinter. Which seems even more impossible." He paused and traced his fingers over the wood of the desk. "What aren't you telling me about him? At first you were upset, confused, when he left, but now you're so angry. What's changed?"

She laughed, startling herself. "Maker preserve us, there's never been anything romantic, if that's what you mean. I prefer my men a little less cryptic and a lot more blonde," she said. A smile ghosted over his face. More soberly, she crossed her arms and stared at the carpet. "But I'm worried. There are things I haven't told you, or anyone. Cole knew, I think, until Solas made him forget."

He raised an eyebrow. "Made him forget? How does that work?"

"Don't ask me," she said. "I'm not even sure it happened."

His voice carried quietly across the room, through all of that frightening space. "Tell me the things you haven't told anyone. I'm no mage, but I am yours."

She walked to the bed and fell backwards into its softness, staring at the ceiling before closing her eyes. "Thing one, the Fade. When we walked through it, the Nightmare demon told us our fears, taunted us with them. That's known. But with me, when he was close to defeat, he did more. I don't know if he sensed me as the weakest link or as simply the leader, but he made me live the worst fears of everyone close to me. Not just the people fighting beside me, but all of my friends. I experienced them… very intimately."

A long silence stretched between them. "Ah. I see. Including me? I imagine I had quite a few to choose from."

"You especially. It sensed that it hurt me the most." Evelyn breathed slowly. "I never told any of you. It felt like a violation of your most private spaces, and I didn't want to deal with your anger or shame. I was a coward, but if even one of you had left me… well, let's just say that my own fear was quite powerful.

"Solas's fear was confusing but very strong," she said and thought back. Trapped in a room, doors slamming, pounding against them, hearing screams on the other side, then nothing. Forever starlight loneliness. "It was about being alone, having no one. Which is what is happening to him, now that he abandoned us. Thing two is that Cole channeled him, or something like him, in front of me. Cole had been searching for him, trying to help, and Solas's spirit seemed to reach through. He talked about a lonely path he had to walk, and then made Cole forget that he wanted to help him. I've asked Cole about him several times since, and he insists Solas is happy."

"I hesitate to say it, but perhaps he is," Cullen said. "Maybe he's moved beyond us, into what's next for him. He wouldn't be the only one, even if he said a less enthusiastic goodbye than Vivienne or Dorian." He wrinkled his nose. "Especially Dorian."

Evelyn sat up and glared. "No. I know it's not true. Thing three that I never told. After Corypheus died, Solas said something to me, alone, before the others reached us. At the time I thought he was grieving the loss of the orb for the elves, but now I wonder. He said he respected me, no matter what happens. He said it wasn't supposed to be the way it is. He implied that he did something, was part of this. Maybe caused it. And now he hasn't come back, and I need him, and I am furious at him for leaving me to deal with the fallout of something he might have done!"

A knock at the door made them both jump. A messenger barely paused for permission to enter before bowing into the room. "Forgive me, Your Worship," he said, "but Josephine requests your immediate presence in her office. An elf calling himself Abelas asks to see you."


	2. Displacements

Four Templars waited outside Josephine's door when she arrived, lined up in escort formation. She gave them her best noble glare and asked, "Is this necessary?"

It was Cullen who answered behind her. "Your Grace, an unknown mage of unknown origins with unknown intentions and potentially limitless power is waiting behind that door. I'm amazed there are only four."

The lone woman of the group saluted. "Another eight are already in the room, Knight-Commander Cullen, with Lady Montilyet and her assistants."

"Excellent, Arlena. You are a credit to the Order. I'll be in my office or on the sparring grounds, should you need me, though I'm sure you will not. Please take care of the Lady Inquisitor," he said, returning the salute. The woman's posture became even more painfully military, and Evelyn inwardly groaned. She wouldn't be able to use the privy by herself until the elf was gone, much less convince them to leave her alone in a room with him. The bastard. His smile as he made his bow to her hid nothing, and she resolved to recruit Sera into a retaliation plan.

Nothing to be done about it now_. Besides_, whispered the Inquisitor_, they will make him unsettled. And make good shields._ Evelyn slammed her mind shut. "Lead on, Knight-Captain."

She decided to fight after all when she saw the crowd in Josephine's office. Large as it was, it was not designed to hold an entire delegation, especially when that delegation was trying to give a polite amount of room to a guest. Josephine gave her no chance, however, leaping from her chair beside the elf as soon the door opened. "Inquisitor! I'm grateful for your time this morning. Allow me to present Lord Abelas, protector of Mythal, though he says he is known to you already."

He rose and looked at her. His face was older and more lined, catching up to his ancient eyes, but there was no mistaking who he was. His countenance never changed, but she felt she'd disappointed him somehow.

Evelyn stepped forward and bowed. "Yes, that's so. He was a crucial ally against Corypheus and offered me much trust. I hope that he saw his trust rewarded."

He sighed. "All too well rewarded, it seems. You do not hold the wisdom we offered, nor the price it carried."

She shifted on her feet, aware of the eyes on them both. "It didn't seem the correct path," she said slowly. "The enemy sought to become a god, never my goal, and had given me one of his tools already. Taking the second would have been… risky. I entrusted it to another, one with strength to fight me should I go wrong." So careful. So much to guard.

"The choice favors you, and shows wisdom for a human, but it leaves another path blocked to us," he said. "I do not expect the recipient to be as easy to find as you were. There was cunning there."

Josephine motioned them to their seats, but Evelyn cut her off. "Would you prefer to talk outside, my lord? I'm sure being indoors isn't comfortable for you." _Please say yes,_ she thought. _A place where ears can be kept distant, even with eyes on me._

The Templars muttered, and Josephine's smile intensified in its diplomacy, but Abelas saved her from a mutiny by sitting back in his seat. "I appreciate the courtesy, but I find little in this world comfortable, indoors or out. Human buildings are no better or worse than others. And I would not challenge your protectors, who honor you as I honor Mythal," he added, close to smiling. "But I am no lord, merely Abelas."

She sat across from him and leaned forward. "So you haven't found a new name. I'd hoped you might. I'd hoped your people would find comfort in Thedas, now. Possibly even among humans." She paused, puzzled. "Why don't you call us _shemlen_, as the Dalish do?"

His eyes narrowed. "The Dalish are mad children scratching on trees, making messes where there should only be order. They do not understand the words they use, the rituals they follow, or the lives they lead. I pity them, but I will not indulge them."

_So like Solas,_ the Inquisitor whispered. _This contempt is weakness._

"As for my name," he continued, "your barefaced friend knew much, but I am afraid he did not understand names. They do not change easily or lightly, and were I not Abelas I might not be at all."

Evelyn stared at her hands, unsure of what came next. There were flavors of sorrow, like joy or love, and his had changed from the ferocity of loss to the exhaustion of grief. She had nothing to offer him. As the silence lengthened, she realized he wished for that oblivion, to no longer be. The price kept him tethered, and he suffered underneath it the more because he couldn't imagine struggle. The mark on her hand sparked, once, and tears gathered in her eyes. She felt a terrible kinship with this ancient elf who couldn't leave himself behind.

A cough, from Josephine, brought her back to the room. "What is it you would like from us, Abelas?" Josephine asked. "We welcome your people to the Inquisition if you will join, as a continued alliance, as advisors, or even as friends. Your order is ancient and worthy of respect. We've cleaned much of the temple and you'd be welcome to it, or we could find other land or space for you to live. Or, if you merely wished to speak more with the Inquisitor, we could arrange for a dinner tonight and an open line of communication in the future."

"Yes, we should talk about that," he said, steepling his fingers. "Your Inquisition seems noble, as these things go, but my people serve our own cause and cannot join another. We had hoped to find the gifted knowledge here, but that hope was an empty nest. Rather than begin the hunt over, let us change targets.

"We went out into the world, as we had to, after the attack on our Temple. We looked for a place that was not strange, but all the world is strange and we felt no pull to service. When it became clear that we had no place in your lands, we sought to end our awakening, to go back to dreams or death. This, too, eluded us. To me, this can mean only one thing - Mythal yet has need of us, in this time. We must serve her, of course, but we have no guidance. No message has come. She may be in the other world, in this world, in no world at all but our own memories. Her needs may be many or as few as one. We guarded the Temple and its secret as our only task, but that is no more. We thought the knowledge of our purpose might live inside of you, Inquisitor, even without our gift, for there are many stories of your power in this world."

He paused and tilted his head, waiting. An image pressed itself into her mind - an old woman taking a soul from a boy in the Fade. _Flemeth. Mythal. She calls her warriors back to her. But why? _Thoughts from Evelyn, herself. The Inquisitor's dark thoughts came behind, oily and grasping. _A goddess in need of protection. An opportunity. A valuable piece for capture._

But the last voice, unfamiliar and strange, was the one she heard most clearly. _Be careful, little one, be so careful. His trust is a snake, his loyalty not to you. A trap, a test, a snare in front of you._

She cleared her throat and stared into the fire behind him, choosing her words. "I don't know what service your Mythal might need from you, Abelas. While stories about me are plentiful, truths are dear, and my power doesn't extend to gods. But she's here, in this world, and if she's revealed this to you then her need must be great."

"You've seen her then? She lives? Where can she be found?"

"I saw her only in the Fade, but she was alive and walked in and out of like she was not a prisoner. She told me she had lived in the world, though nowhere specific. She could be anywhere by now." She avoided mentioning Morrigan, not that she knew where her mother was regardless. There was no reason to give the elves a second reason to go after her. "The Inquisition would be happy to use our resources to help you in your search, however. She did a service for a friend, and there are things I'd like to ask her, if she's found."

Abelas relaxed. She hadn't realized his tension until his shoulders dropped back, and she glimpsed a flash of magic fold back into his hands. The Templars behind her didn't see it, thank the Maker. Angry Templars rarely made a negotiation run smoothly.

"We welcome your aid, Inquisitor, and we can also offer a beginning to a search. While we have no fixed location, our mages have sensed puzzling flashes of her spirit in a place you call Fereldan. The glimpses do not feel as we remembered, and they move erratically. Nevertheless, they are our only clue. That, and the compulsion to find you. The connection was present but unknown in nature."

Josephine crossed her legs with a pointed rustling, and he turned in her direction. "Lady Ambassador, I apologize for the deception. I meant no harm, but I had to know how much trust would be offered. Protecting is not always noble." He turned back. "But I misjudged you, human, and I re-offer my trust if you will have it."

Evelyn stood. "I understand your concerns, and my offer of help still stands. I'll discuss this with my advisors and see what is appropriate. Please be our guests in Skyhold, or anywhere on her lands, until we've reached a decision."

He mirrored her motion, then nodded his head. The Templars walking him out were no less formal than before, but she was reasonably sure they were less afraid. Josephine certainly looked more confident. And only two Templars stayed behind to guard her. Thank the Maker.

She walked over to the fireplace and leaned against it, staring into the flames. "So Cole," she said, not turning around, "what did you think of him?"

A laugh came from the corner. "You saw me! You always see me now, like a leaf sees the wind, without eyes."

"You put a thought in my mind again, didn't you." she asked without a question. He drew up beside her but avoided her face.

"I didn't put it in. It wanted to come through from yourself so I helped it. It was slippery, but I found a path. I'm sorry if I did wrong," he said.

She chewed on her lip. "No, it was an important thought. It helped me." His face brightened under the shadow of his hat. "I wish I knew more about what he wanted from me. His mind doesn't work like any of ours, even the modern elves. Even yours."

Cole nodded. "When you put your hand under the water it separates and is no longer your hand. Light displaces flesh in time. They will never be joined the same."

She smiled as he held out his own hand to the light of the fire, then swept out of the room.


	3. War Table

"What in Andraste's holy name did you think you were doing?"

Evelyn fell forward, trying to bury her head into the table's wood. "Leliana, I don't think it's appropriate for the Divine to take the name of -" she began in muffled tones.

"I will take any name in vain that pleases me, whatever my title," snapped her spymaster. "I'm not yet Divine, but Justinia claimed that a Divine who did not blaspheme simply wasn't doing her job properly, and I'm starting to understand what she meant. You told a room full of people that you met an elven goddess! In the Fade! And that she helped you! You understand that you are the Herald of Andraste, do you not? Not the Herald of Arlathan?"

"I never asked for that title, nor did I claim it when it was given to me." Evelyn slapped the table and pushed herself up. "You gave it to me. You all did. My experiences do not change because of a false title. Besides, I did not tell a room full of people. I only told Abelas. And Josephine. The rest of Skyhold would know nothing if some of my advisors didn't insist on a flotilla of bodies following me wherever I went!"

"Leliana," said Josephine, "the Inquisitor did try to move the discussion out of doors before the unfortunate conversation occurred. I think she understood the risks, and made the difficult choice to accept them."

Evelyn threw her a grateful glance, but Leliana continued to pace the back wall. "Of course, Josie, as long as the consequences were considered carefully by one single person in the middle of a polite chat, by all means let's accept it. Never mind our influence may have taken a permanent blow among the Andrastians of Thedas. The Herald cannot be so reckless with her reputation."

Evelyn snorted. "Yes, there certainly aren't any stories floating around about me doing things much more blasphemous, not to mention ludicrous, as talking to an old elf in the Fade. Spread the word that I saw Andraste in disguise, or that the Maker was there, too. The stories will mingle soon enough, and I'll be back to the symbol you need. Isn't that what you do, Nightingale? Whisper lies to make a new truth?"

Leliana's face flashed pain, and Evelyn almost apologized. Almost. But she was tired of being the paragon for a troubled faith, and even wearier of lying for it. She wanted the lies to work for her for a change. The Inquisitor murmured its agreement inside her. She ignored it.

"Ladies," said Cullen. All three women started; he'd been so quiet they'd forgotten he was in the room. "I think the question of what should have been done must be set aside. It has been done, for good or ill. How we deal with it must be decided later - though I agree with the Inquisitor that disinformation is a good strategy." Evelyn smiled and reached out across the table, but he drew back his hand.

"What I think is more important is why we didn't know about it until today. If it's even true." Josephine's eyes widened, and Leliana took a step towards them both.

"Of course it's true! Why would I make it up?"

"Blackwall, Dorian and Iron Bull said nothing about meeting an elven goddess, nothing about being helped. They were with you every moment in the Fade, and your accounts to me tallied to the smallest detail. I understand that physically visiting the Fade may provide different mental experiences which were not described at the time," he said, his voice hard. She flushed. "But I find it hard to believe you had time to dally with anyone to the extent you claim, goddess or not. So what's the truth, Lady?"

Maker's breath. She really hadn't thought this through. Curse Cole's slippery voices that led her to act in ways she couldn't undo. "I didn't meet her then," she said. She tucked her hair behind her ear. "It was on the second trip."

Leliana pivoted to the table in one quick motion. "You travelled to the Fade a second time? Physically? Do you know how dangerous that is?" _Good thing she doesn't have her bow,_ thought Evelyn. Y_ou don't need every piece of a Herald to prop her up for a crowd._

Josephine's tan skin had gone a sickly olive, enhanced by her mustard dress, and Cullen's jaw was granite. His eyes showed her nothing, and she knew he would not forgive this easily. "Did you open up another Rift?" he asked quietly. "Did you go alone?"

"No. No, nothing like that. I didn't mean to go. I didn't know I would be going until I was there." She twisted her hands together in her lap, tried to gain control. "It was when I went after Morrigan, through the Eluvian. Remember, Leliana? She'd disappeared, with her son, and I went after them."

"I remember. You told me you'd gone to the Courtyard, the space between worlds."

"You assumed. I… didn't correct you."

Leliana shook her head. "And Morrigan would have lied, had I even thought to ask. So this mirror took you to the Fade, just like Corypheus wished it to. I suppose it's comforting to know that we thwarted a real plan after all. Less comforting to know it now that it would have been then, of course. But where does a goddess come in? You said you simply found them, talking, and brought them back."

Evelyn flinched. "That's broadly true."

"Why don't we narrow the scope?" asked Cullen, relentless. "Now that we're sharing."

"Morrigan and I found Kieran talking to the person who took him. We convinced her to let him return to us." Three pairs of unsatisfied eyes, trapping her. She continued, defensively, "It's not my secret to tell! Morrigan was afraid, and she's not easily frightened, so I decided to let it be rather than endanger anyone else. It had nothing to do with Corypheus, and it ended peacefully. But while we were there we met Mythal, who told us nothing we needed to know and left. I exaggerated the help for Abelas's benefit, to gain his trust."

Cullen nearly spat on the floor. "Endanger anyone else. Meaning you were in danger and let us live in ignorance of it. When will you learn you're not invulnerable? Miracles run out. Maker, I can only protect you from the things I know about, Inquisitor, and through protecting you protect this cause."

_He thinks you're helpless, _the Inquisitor hissed_. He loves you only to serve his crusade._

She let a smile curve her mouth, but she knew it held no mirth. "I can care for myself, Commander, despite any who might doubt that. I can also make my own choices, and I make them alone. I serve your cause. I am not its slave. Besides, it would carry on without me quite well. Likely better than it does with me, based on this meeting. Having a living Herald seems to be more inconvenience to you all than blessing!"

An awful silence filled the room. Evelyn sat forward, wanting the fight. Months ago, she'd done nothing but go to a conclave like she'd been told. She'd picked something up, out of instinct, and now her self was vanishing from under her. She'd picked them up, out of duty, and carried them all on her back. She'd fought for them, bled for them, become what they all needed, and they were never sated. They took and took and took until it hurt, then threw her choices in her face. So easy for them to judge what they didn't have to hold. Her body flamed with anger, full and eager, and she waited.

The chair scraped against the floor as Cullen pushed himself up. He rested against the table and avoided her eyes. "Ladies," he said in a heavy voice. "I think we've gone past anything constructive. With your permission, I'll see to my other duties." Without waiting for approval, he strode to the door. He moved with none of his usual grace, and when he turned to open it, Evelyn was shocked at how old he looked. He'd never shown his age so clearly.

Shame flooded through her, and acknowledgement. She knew his fears better than she ever should have. The Nightmare Demon had seen to that, planting one so deep in her mind it might well have been her own. A lyrium bottle, unopened in his pocket. A pitched battle, with demons and blood mages at every corner. His sword too slow, his mind too fogged, and his orders too late while she died in front of him. It was never the same enemy twice, never the same fight, but she always died quickly, and the killer always laughed. It took her hand for his prize and left Cullen to live with the laughter.

That's the weapon she'd wielded against him, a stolen one she'd vowed to hide. She'd told herself she wanted a fight but used a dagger to gut him and end it before it could begin. The worst part was, she'd done it on purpose. The worst part was, she wasn't even in the right. The worst part was, she might do it again.

"Commander!" Leliana's voice broke through her guilt. She held up one hand and studied Evelyn. Appraised her, actually. She seemed to come to a decision. "I think we can resolve much of this now. The Inquisitor must go personally to search for Mythal. She has a clear connection with this elf, and she is the only one of the Inquisition she is likely to trust. More importantly, she is the only one who will recognize her unless Morrigan returns. While she does so, Josephine and I will handle whatever rumors are spreading, and you will shift troop support to Fereldan to be close at hand if needed. Agreed?"

Three agreements came quickly. Resigned from Cullen, soothing from Josephine, miserable from her.

"Good. Now, I would speak to the Lady privately."

When the door was closed and they were alone, Leliana took a seat next to her. "That was a very silly thing you did, Your Grace."

She laughed harshly. "Which part?" Tears stung her eyes and her mark flashed in response.

Leliana snorted, but not unkindly. "I suppose there were several choices. But believe it or no, I support you and think you're usually right. You're my leader, by my choice. When I become Divine, I will remain part of the Inquisition. And I never forget that you supported me for that role, as well." She pressed her hand over Evelyn's. "You were right to challenge me - a spymaster works with what is, not with what she wishes were. But you were wrong to condemn Cullen. And cruel. He loves you deeply. He pretends to protect you as a leader to protect you as a woman. And truthfully he has let you go into danger far more than I ever would have."

"I know. He agreed to this search without question." _Unless it was only to get me far away from him._

"Ah yes, your trip. Shall I tell you why I suggested it? It was an interesting tale you told. You say Morrigan's son was taken by someone, then returned unharmed. You say Morrigan was afraid. Morrigan has only ever feared one woman. Flemeth took Kieran into the Fade." She silenced Evelyn's question. "Yes, I know Flemeth. We all did, once. She took the child. For what purpose - to torture her escaped daughter? Possibly, but why return him? You say it's a secret. Morrigan has only ever had one secret. Perhaps the Kieran she returned was not fully the Kieran that left, hm? Perhaps a piece of him has been borrowed, a very important piece unique to him.

"Still, why would Flemeth need it? It's not a ring you can slip on and off, and her immortality is established, if circular. And where did this elven goddess come from if you just stumbled into the Fade? A curious coincidence, to happen upon two such powerful women. Or a clever half-truth, one you are so good at telling. And why not? Flemeth has many names, as she herself says."

Evelyn sat back. "One day I will learn not to be surprised at the things you know."

She smiled sweetly. "Ah, Your Grace. I am a very good spy. And I have lived many lives." Her mood darkened. "But if Flemeth is who we hunt, we cannot afford to send anyone but you. None but a legend has any chance."


	4. Consultations

_Author's Note: I wasn't going to do any of these, to make the story flow better, but this is really the only way to thank the people who have reviewed, followed, or even just read along for themselves, and I am much too grateful not to. I appreciate every eye on the page, and I appreciate even more those who take time out of their day to give me feedback. I'm having a blast writing this, so even if no one ever saw it, it would be worth it… but we all know it's better when people do. I hope those who like it continue to do so, and I hope if you don't, you tell me why! Thanks again, all._

* * *

><p>Her first task was to tell the elves, and she took the walk as a chance to collect herself. Abelas and his group had made their camp just outside the hold proper, in a grove that looked private but had several vantage points from the walls. Josephine had a talent for such things. As she approached, Abelas stood to greet her. No fool, he left his staff on the ground and smoothly stepped a pace away. She didn't waste time.<p>

"It's been decided that I'll lead the search for Mythal personally, if that's acceptable to you and your people. If it is, I ask that you share any information you have about location with Scout Harding, our reconnaissance expert." She gestured to the dwarf next to her, who essayed a tentative wave.

Abelas raised his eyebrows. "Inquisitor, you honor us with your personal interest in this. We did not expect such generosity, but we gladly accept it. If it pleases you, I and two of my men will join you, while the rest remain here to continue searching with magic."

She hesitated, but nodded her assent. It was his goddess, after all; she could hardly refuse. "I hope to leave in two days, before any trail runs cold. Is that enough time?"

"Yes, Your Grace, thank you," said Abelas. He stepped towards her and lowered his voice. "Tell me, please, what made you decide this? My journeys through your lands show that most humans have little time for elven troubles, and your time is more valuable than all."

Evelyn eyed her escort Templars before answering. "What's important to the elves is important to Thedas, whether they accept it or not. The Inquisition will aid all those of this land who seek our help in good faith. If there's any chance of recovering such an important part of your heritage, it must be done. And you, Abelas, have given us much, more than we had a right to ask for. It's only fair we return it with our best."

"I see. A worthy answer. If you will forgive me, you are not what I imagined you to be." He gave a faint smile. "You remind me of an elf."

* * *

><p>She considered asking her guard to remain with her for her next stop, as a shield, but decided the gossip mill couldn't take any more grist for today. Signaling them to back away, she opened the door to Cullen's office without knocking. He stood at his desk, briefing the captains on their assigned patrols and watches for the next week. One of them was in the middle of a long joke about a short barman from Tevinter, a sure sign the meeting was nearly over. She slipped back against the wall. Cullen's door opened so often he hadn't noticed her come in, and he was grinning as the joke worked towards its punchline. She watched his face, trying to memorize its happiness.<p>

He looked over then and saw her, and his jaw tensed. But he laughed deeply as the captain finished with a flourish, then cheerfully waved them out of the door as they discussed the various ways the joke wasn't anatomically possible. His men always saw the commander they needed. He closed it behind them and leaned his head on his forearm before turning to her. His eyebrows were drawn together, but his voice was soft. "Evelyn."

She loved him in that moment, for using her name.

"I'm sorry, Cullen." She stopped. She'd thought she'd have more to say. She'd come up with some very good lines on her way up the stairs, but they all abandoned her now. "I'm sorry," she said helplessly.

He held her gaze. "I know. I'm sorry, too," he added, sighing. "You're not a vassal of this organization, and you never asked to be here. My anger was extreme."

"But warranted," she said hurriedly. "I kept something from you. Information that would have helped you do your job. I shouldn't have."

Irritation crossed his face, and she stopped again. When he said nothing, she continued in a small voice. "And I'm sorry about what I said. About you being better off if… I didn't mean it. I used your fear to push you away. I violated a trust. Please forgive me."

He looked older again, leaning sideways against the door. She saw shadows under his eyes and realized how worried about her he must have been the last few weeks while she was too busy to notice. After a long minute, he stretched his arm out. She moved closer, and he drew her in towards him.

"I forgive you for that, if you wish. That fear is nothing anyone couldn't guess, so if there were a violation it was small. And I forgive you for making my job harder. I protect the most important person in Thedas and command the largest military force outside of a government. It was never going to be easy."

She twisted closer to him when he paused, fitting herself to the smoothness of his armor. He pulled back and lifted her chin to look her in the face. He wasn't wearing gloves, and his calloused fingers were rough on her skin. "I forgive you, Evelyn, as Commander and friend. What I can't forgive is the secrets you keep between us. I'm not naïve enough to think you've told me everything I should know that I don't. You offered me honesty this morning and even that was incomplete. You charm and lie so well that I can't see the holes, but I know they're there. And you'll never be sorry enough to stop lying to me if it's what you think is best."

There was no reason to protest. He was right. So she stayed silent, admitting nothing and everything, and waited.

He pressed his forehead against hers and rubbed his thumb down her jawline. "But I love you, and you'll leave soon, and I've no time for this anger if you might never return." He tilted his head down and kissed her, soft and then hard, slipping his hand behind her head and tangling his fingers in her hair. She responded fiercely, pulling him towards her_. I love you, too,_ she thought, and wished the truth came out more easily in the world than inside her head.

After a time, he pulled back. "Your guards must be threatening people with swords to keep my doors closed this long," he said. "How long until you leave?"

"Two days." She traced the scar above his lip with her finger. "Will you come up tonight?"

He nodded and pulled her in tightly against him. "It's very hard to love a woman who's always leaving," he murmured into her hair.

"It's hard to be a woman who always leaves," she said. She laughed quietly against his chest. "Though I imagine it's sometimes hard to love me while I'm here, too."

He kissed the top of her head and released her. "You're wrong. The trouble is, it's all too easy."

* * *

><p>She hurried back to the Keep on lighter feet. She needed to get to the Undercroft to check the armor her assistants had selected, and she was hoping to find Cassandra somewhere along the way to start planning strategy. To her surprise, she found her sitting with Sera in Solas's chambers, now a sort of sitting room, staring at the scenes painted on the walls. Cassandra motioned her to take a seat across from them, and Evelyn grimaced. These walls were nothing but reminders of a betrayal for her, but she'd known Skyhold's inhabitants loved them too much for her to destroy them. She settled into a chair with a view of as much of the door as possible.<p>

Cassandra looked slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Inquisitor," she said in her most noble inflections. "I realize I should be out training recruits, but this room I find very soothing. The murals are quite lovely."

Evelyn grinned. "Cassandra, it's okay. You're allowed to stop fighting and appreciate something beautiful every once in a while. In fact, I demand you do so at least once per day." She turned to Sera. "I am a little surprised at you being here. Isn't this all a little elven for you?"

"Hey, alright? Just because I don't like all that elf-y welf-y sit in a forest crap doesn't mean I can't like a thing. The pictures in here are nice, yeah? Peaceful. Not like all that blood and guts we fix up all the time."

"I surrender!" Evelyn said meekly, putting her hands up. Her mouth twitched as Sera glared, then turned back to the murals with a huff.

"I'm glad you're both here, actually," she said more seriously. "I'll meet with everyone tomorrow, but we have a trip to plan, and I'd like your thoughts. If you're willing to go with me, of course." She quickly outlined the mission, leaving out all mention of Morrigan, the Fade and past meetings with witchy goddesses.

When she finished, Sera hooted. "Not enough to beat down someone who just wants to be a god, yeah? Now you have to go smash one who says they already are, just to prove who's biggest. Gods, the ones who just pretend I mean, they're the biggest stompers around. Plenty of favors if you take them down."

Evelyn rubbed her temples. "We're not planning to fight her, Sera, just find her. For the elves." Sera waved this away and started humming one of the more militant passages of the Chant.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. "I, of course, will accompany you on whatever task you require. I must admit to curiosity about seeing someone who may have lived for so long, if she exists. She would have many things to tell us that we have lost through the years. But I worry about being accompanied by strangers. Of course, we are not in much of a position to refuse."

"Exactly. And really, it might work out. We've run out of mages I trust, and Abelas and the others are at least powerful. Even if it's mostly trading one problem for another."

A voice called out from her left, "I'm sorry, was someone here looking for a mage? I have an excellent candidate."

Evelyn spun around. A dark-skinned man with an impossible mustache bowed deeply in the doorway to the Great Hall. She leapt out of her chair. "Dorian!" She sprinted across the room and enveloped him in a hug. "You're back from Tevinter so soon?"

He squeezed her tightly before answering. "Yes, well, I'm afraid the Imperium is not yet softened sufficiently for my vision, and my father and I can only make it so long in a room before the magic starts bubbling up." He let her go and sank into a precise, courtly bow. "Besides, the ladies of Tevinter compare most unfavorably to my lovely comrades in arms."

Cassandra glowered. Sera blew a raspberry. Evelyn raised her eyebrow.

"Alas, such difficult audiences in these smelly lands. In Tevinter the fans would already be violently fluttering. It comforts me to know none of you will be looking to marry me for either my charm or my family name."

"Any woman marrying you for your charm would find herself smothered and starved all at the same time," Cassandra snorted. Dorian feigned an arrow to the heart, and Evelyn covered a laugh with her hand.

She thought for a second, then chuckled. "Iron Bull will be happy to see you, anyway. He's been even more disparaging of the Vints than usual since you left. Even Krem's taken to sassing him back about it."

Dorain smiled. "Yes, he did have several new slurs to throw at me. I think he was rather pleased to try them out on someone who could be truly insubordinate."

She narrowed her eyes. "You saw Bull before coming to find me? And you thought you'd get away with that?"

"My dear Evelyn, though you hold the only woman's favor I would ever condescend to wait for, there's always a tremendous queue at your office. Besides, I got a much better entrance line this way, didn't I?" He led her back to the chairs and sat down beside her. "Now, tell me about these problems you have that only a handsome mage can solve."


	5. Adventure

The night before they left, she dreamed.

Cullen's frustration still pulsed between them, alive and savage, and her knowledge of her own secrets kept her guilty and on edge in his presence. Their days were like traveling in a strange room in the dark, full of things to stumble over that she sensed but couldn't see. But true to his word, he'd come to her the first night, and the second, and in bed they could push those feelings aside and simply love. She was grateful. With him, the new, harder pieces inside faded, and she came back to herself. His touch and need closed the rift inside of her and made her Evelyn again, if only for a while.

She was afraid of what would happen when she was too far away for that touch. She slept with one hand on his arm, her own anchor to keep herself closed.

The Fade overtook her slowly, bleeding in from the edges of her mind. She tried to stir, to escape it, but it came relentless as always. She prepared for the shadows, for a dark and dry forest where she would hear the sibilant voice of her darker nature come out of a living statue. The dream always lived in the woods.

Her dream-self blinked when she saw, instead, the mural room. Its colors were more violent here, the pictures feral and challenging. She wondered if she only saw them that way or if the Fade had stripped them to their true essence. Maybe that's what the Fade was, the reality underneath the world, showing the good or bad. Or was it all bad? Her hands clenched until her nails marked the flesh of her palms. The anchor flashed in warning, the green light casting shadows across the wall that made the drawings appear closer and more distant at the same time. Like the parts of herself, but with a trick of light instead of a tearing of soul.

"Come, my friend, the Fade holds whatever you bring to it. It has no morality of its own, only feelings. Only when you add the complexity of the living do they twist into evil."

Solas's voice. In the hazy way of the Fade, he appeared in front of her while having been there all along, as if the light from her hand had revealed a secret. Without thought, she raised her hand to strike him, whether in surprise or anger she couldn't be sure. Her hand caught in the air and held, and the green sparks screamed in her ear in protest. He didn't move, only stared at her with cool eyes. "You disappoint me. I thought you wished to remove violence from the world, not carry it inside your pockets wherever you go."

She lowered her hand gingerly and rubbed her wrist. "People change. So is this the real you, or is it a dream of you I'm conjuring?"

"A distinction without a difference when you speak of the Fade. Justinia should be proof enough of that. And even if I answered, would you be able to trust it?"

Her mouth curved sourly. "You sound like him, at least. Vague and unhelpful still, after all this time." She huffed a breath upward, and her gauzy dream hair fluttered above her in a halo. As it settled, the questions poured out of her. "Where are you? Why did you leave? Were you helping Corypheus the entire time? Were you his spy? Did you learn all you wanted from us before you vanished and left me to fend for myself?" Her voice broke.

"Did you do this to me?" she whispered. "I thought you were my friend."

The coolness in his eyes faded. They became more what she remembered. Kinder. "_Ma falon_, I didn't come to this place to answer questions. It's better that you don't know these things. I walk a path meant for one, and I would not have you join me even if you could. I came to tell you that I know what the elves have asked of you. I implore you not to help. Or if you do, not to go yourself. Please."

"How could you possibly know anything about it?"

He slashed the air with his hand. "It doesn't matter. I know. Will you do as I ask?"

"Why ask? Just alter my mind, like you did with Cole. Make me forget it ever happened, or change my decision to what you want. We're in the Fade, your home ground." She crossed her arms.

"I'm not a god. I cannot overlay my will onto yours. Cole is special, his connection to the Fade unique. Moreover, he is a spirt that can bring forgetfulness. I simply reflected his power, like a mirror, and now he is happy to believe me well and I am happy to have him safe. Would that it were so easy with you, Inquisitor."

At his words, her hand burned with inner fire. She screamed and clutched it to her chest, sinking to the ground. The flesh of her knees felt like stone and cracked underneath her when she fell. The magic seared itself into her unmarked hand and made her weak with pain. She heard a tearing sound, like making bandages from a shirt, and realized the room around them was tearing itself apart. The edges unraveled like an old tapestry, and she vaguely wondered if the forest was tired of waiting for her to leave this dream.

Then Solas was there, his hand on her head, whispering elven words she didn't know. The Fade quieted around them as the room mended itself, the pain faded, and he knelt beside her. He took the hand that held the anchor and ran his fingers, sparking with magic, over it. Whatever he did soothed the fire and reduced it to its normal, faint glow. He stared at it expressionless for a long time until he leaned back and looked at her face. His eyes were no longer cool or kind but dead with grief.

She was tired and heavy, but she reached her other hand up to touch his cheek. "_Abelas_," she said groggily. "I'm sorry." Too much sorrow, even if he was no longer friend.

He grimaced and placed his hand over hers. He looked at the wall behind her. "Yes_. Ir abelas, ma falon_. It seems I am too late in my request. Perhaps I always would have been. Things have not moved in a predictable way in some time now."

She had no energy to answer, but he was already continuing. "I withdraw what I asked. I think you must offer your help. If I know you, you've already done so." He lowered their hands and bowed his head. "Oh my friend, what this world has demanded of you already. I'm afraid it must ask still more."

"It's okay," she whispered. "That's my job."

He smiled. "I would entrust the fate of the world to no other." He straightened. "I must leave. But before I go, no more bad dreams." He pressed his hands to the sides of her face, then kissed her softly, once on her forehead and then her mouth. Something cold slipped away inside of her, and peace replaced it.

She blinked. "Solas, I… Cullen is…"

He stood and pulled her to her feet. "Yes, Cullen. Your love is good, what is needed for you both. You will heal each other and grow strong for many years if the gods are kind. You are not my heart, nor I yours, but there are many kinds of love, and I carry yours with me."

He stepped back and raised his hands. Lightning arced between them, and the room expanded outward. "I hope we meet again someday, outside of this place. If we don't, know that you are the only human I have ever called friend."

He vanished as the room blew apart, and she drew back into her body. Before she woke fully, she heard the rich, rolling laughter of the Inquisitor and realized for the first time it was not coming from inside of her. She tried to call to Solas, to warn him, but the dream was gone too quickly. She woke with a gasp.

Cullen stirred. He rolled towards her and studied her through bleary eyes. He propped himself on his elbow to slide his hand around her waist. "Bad dream?" he asked, voice rough with sleep.

"Just a dream," she said. "Not all bad."

"Do you want to talk about it?" His thumb traced slow circles on her back.

"Had a talk with an old friend. Then the room exploded a few times."

"Mm. So which part was the good one?"

She laughed and rolled him over, pinning him beneath her. She skimmed his collarbone with her finger. "If you're going to laugh at me, I'm definitely not talking to you right now."

A slow, crooked grin erased his fatigue. "That's what I was hoping you'd say."

* * *

><p>They left in midday light, like characters from a children's tale. They passed through the columns of men at attention and caused whispers. Varric, the storyteller, with only his own story never told. Cassandra, champion of the Seekers and daughter of kings. Iron Bull, Tal Vashoth warrior spy. Dorian, the heir of and traitor to Tevinter's magic. Cole, the boy of shadows. Sera, the archer with quick arrows and a quicker mouth. And Evelyn Trevelyan, Andraste-touched savior who wore the Maker's blessing on her hand to heal the world.<p>

All of Skyhold watched them go. Her advisors stood on the stairs like statues. Evelyn carried their good-byes close to her heart as she spurred her mount across the bridge. _Be safe. The Maker watch and protect you. Return to me._ The last with an ache in her heart that she would not allow herself to show.

Then she was past, and they were moving more quickly, giving chase to Harding's scout group a day ahead. Abelas and two lightly-clad elves swung in behind them. She felt the familiar stir of adventure and laughed. Sera answered with her own whoop and they flew down the path, ready to meet whatever came.

* * *

><p>They traveled for a week without incident. They stopped in villages and provided what aid and service they could. She spoke to crowds of people while her group moved quietly among them, picking up information to pass back to Leliana. The presence of a holy woman always inspired a level of sharing rarely seen in Fereldan. Iron Bull, as always, got the best results. His familiarity with bars, his observant nature, and his willingness to sleep with anyone, whether they had information or not, were the three pillars of his spycraft. How he managed to ride his mount without collapsing in exhaustion or inebriation she never learned.<p>

Reminders of the blight still showed around them, but the people were rebuilding. King Alistair had done well by them, and he and his queen were much beloved. Elissa had traveled among the people for a year before returning to the capital to marry, and they spoke of her like a friend if they hadn't met her, a sister if they had. And more than one Fereldan told her with pride how the king had resisted the Grey Warden disease and solemnly vowed that nothing would remove him from the throne before his work for the country was complete.

Evelyn doubted Alistair was capable of vowing much of anything, much less solemnly. Irreverent stubbornness was more his style, but she appreciated their need for stories of his strength. She sensed that they'd been unsure of this bastard king, the deposer of Anora, and it was Elissa's bloodlines and goodwill campaign that had won him any early support. She wrote as much in her report back to Skyhold after the week had passed. The signs of blight were increasing as they moved closer to their destination, the Kocari Wilds, and she included that as well.

Abelas and his companions settled, as always, a slight distance away from them. All were mages, but she was slowly learning that they approached their duties very differently. Abelas was grave and thoughtful, the most cautious of the group. Rina, a female whose knack for the wild places had found them more than a few comforts when inns could not be found, was no less serious, but she approached the world with determination and fire. Hurel smiled often, and he was usually the bridge between their groups. Varric and he traveled together, swapping jokes and trying to shock each other with true and untrue tales of their worlds.

As she watched, Hurel moved to sit across the fire, likely to start another tall tale contest. Iron Bull and Dorian would spend their time supporting or discrediting the dwarf at their whim. She was glad some trust was starting to form between them. Despite the fact that the ugly voice inside of her had dulled to a faint whisper since the dream with Solas, she didn't need it to know she couldn't afford to trust them herself.

She began writing again until she heard a low whistle from Dorian. "Well hello, sailor," he murmured, staring at the trees to her left. A slim figure stood in shadowed silhouette a hundred paces away, with obvious wiry strength running through his arms. His stance was aggressive, though his weapon still hung behind him, and the group instinctively reached for their own. When he saw he'd been noticed, the figure walked forward into the light of their fire until it was clear he was elven. His eyes glittered, matching the shine of the reflective tattoos he wore on his body. Dorian stopped his salacious appraisal of the man's body and shrank back physically, if not in spirit. "Ah. Fenris, I take it?"

The elf glared. Evelyn asked, hand still on her dagger, "You know this man, Dorian?"

"Not personally. Heard quite a lot about him back home. The Glowing Elf, The Wolf Demon. He's been freeing slaves all over, stalking magisters in the nighttime, things of that sort. A bedtime story to scare the grown-ups. At least, the ones who have reason to fear."

Fenris looked no more relaxed, but some of the contempt left his face, if not the hostility. "Keep your eyes off my body, Vint, and you'll not find out how true the stories are." He turned to Varric, then, and his voice dropped to a growl. "Now, Varric. Tell me this quickly and clearly or lose that silver tongue. Where in the hell is Hawke?"


	6. Reflexes

"Wait, you're Hawke's Fenris?" Evelyn clapped her hand over her mouth when he snarled at her. She knew better than to push a fighter's buttons, especially one as on edge as this one, but she couldn't keep a smirk from her lips. She fought to school her expression into something more appropriate and hoped he hadn't noticed.

Dorian had no such compunctions. "How many did you think there were, Your Grace?" he said. "I can assure you that in the Imperium there is only one Fenris they discuss. Do you have others in the south? If so, I hardly know how you survive it."

"Well, no, but the way she talked about him…" _A sensitive warrior with a way of touching a girl's heart,_ she thought. "I guess she must have left some things out," she finished lamely.

"She would. And when I'm done in Tevinter, mage, neither you nor the rest of the magisters will be able to discuss anything ever again," Fenris snapped. "Now shut up."

Varric coughed. "Look, Fenris, I told you, I don't know where she is. She said she was going to Weisshaupt. She left. I got a couple of letters, sent a couple back, and then nothing. It's not like she hasn't done it before. When I'm hearing from her, that's when I'm worried. She always lets me know when she's fallen into something she can't twist her way out of."

"Bullshit, dwarf. It made no sense for her to go there in the first place, and you know it. Now she's gone. She hasn't been to any of our meeting points. And I don't care how she is with you, she never stops writing to me. Question: why aren't you more concerned?" He stepped forward and flexed his fingers. "Answer: you know where she is. And you're going to tell me. Now."

"Hey, can we talk about this somewhere else? Maybe over in those trees?" Varric shifted from foot to foot. "Not that I don't love an audience, but I usually get to prepare a little first."

Cassandra suddenly spoke. "He makes a good point about knowing where people are. In the entirety of Thedas, how was your friend able to find us so easily?" Varric winced, and Evelyn focused her attention on him.

Frenris snorted. "Once he wrote us where you were going, it wasn't hard to pick up your trail." He waved his hand to encompass their camp. "You're not exactly hiding."

"Never were good at subtlety, were you Chuckles? Brooding, yes. A champion brooder. Subtle, not so much," Varric said.

"Hawke prefers me blunt. And you're stalling. Don't test my patience further." Fenris stalked towards the trees.

Varric hesitated, looking at her. "We'll talk later, Varric."

He sighed. "Yeah. Figured we might." He shuffled off after the elf.

The group was quiet for a moment. "He never was much of an informant," Iron Bull said. "First rule of the business, never let boyfriends get involved. They're so high-strung."

"Not hard to believe he was the inspiration for the haunted, lithe mercenary in Varric's series, though," Cassandra said. Everyone stared. "What? Hawke told me once. In passing."

Dorian stood. "Wonderful. A high-strung, lithe elf who hates Tevinter mages and knows exactly how to kill them, in our camp. And I can't even bed him. I'd ask for someone to share my tent for protection tonight, but then two of us wouldn't get any sleep, and that would be a tragedy."

* * *

><p>They rode the next day with a slightly less dour addition to their party. Varric wouldn't say what had calmed the warrior down, which chafed, but he swore that when Hawke's whereabouts became relevant, she would know. When Cassandra of all people vouched for the dwarf's loyalty, she gave in. After all, Hawke was not an enemy, exactly. But the new member cast a pall over the group, as if he'd infected them all with his melancholy. Over the next days they left space between their mounts more often, all lost in their own thoughts. All except Sera, who was mostly lost in quoting love scenes from <em>Passions in Kirkwall<em> to herself and laughing.

On one particularly boring stretch of forest, Iron Bull interrupted her musings. "Hey boss. Great wilderness they've got here, right?"

"Yes, I've never been so entranced by a thousand ever-so-slightly different trees before," she said. "At least nothing is trying to kill us at the moment."

"Yeah, I knew there was something I didn't like about this place." He shifted his seat. "Look, you're the woman with the plan, but I have to say I'm worried about this new guy. He really hates Vints. A lot."

She laughed. "That's your concern? I'd have thought you two would be swapping stories like schoolgirls by now."

"No. I mean, sure, I hate them, but that's only because the ones I meet are always trying to kill me. Anyone who tries to stab me or hit me or put a demon up my ass, yeah, they go on the Bad List. For me, that's mostly been Vints. It's a reflex. But it's like the Qun. Everyone is in it, but that doesn't make them all followers. Dorian's never tried to kill me, so I don't hate him. But this Fenris doesn't seem to wait to get provoked."

"Are you worried about Dorian? That's so sweet of you, Bull."

"Don't make it weird, boss," he said. "He looks good in and out of mail, and he's a hell of a fighter for all of his fancy crap. But he's also a man who doesn't need his heart ripped out of his chest by a homicidal elf. That's all I'm saying." She blanched. They'd all been a little unnerved by Varric's graphic description of Fenris's fighting style.

He paused to eye a bird circling above them. "Besides," he added in low tones, "it's not just the Vint. He's giving the stink-eye to those elf mages, and he doesn't like me much either. I could tear him in half and drink a beer at the same time, but those elves don't really understand our politics. And Varric said he was a Fog Warrior for a while, so that means he's probably a sneaky bastard underneath. It's a good trick to be blunt, that way no one thinks to look for what might be unsaid."

"Alright, Bull. I'll keep a closer eye on him. But it's hard for me to believe that Hawke would love someone who kills people for where or how they were born. And she's a mage herself, so he can't be that uncontrolled or they'd never work."

"Yeah, but Hawke turned on her own kind, killed a friend and a lot of other mages doing it. He might see that as more important. She also put down an Arishok on her own, which, trust me, is not easy. She's probably unbelievable in bed, but I doubt she's as pure as she seems when you meet her. And hey, she isn't here to stop him, is she?"

* * *

><p>A day north of Harding's forward camp on a narrow path through the Wilds, everything happened at once.<p>

Cole reared his mount in the middle of the path and fought to turn back the way he'd come. Varric swore and tried to shift around him, only succeeding in bumping or blocking the rest of the horses behind them. Wind whipped through the trees as Rina instinctively unleashed her magic at an unknown threat. On point, Cassandra called out that she saw fire over the hill in front of them. Hurel shouted and clutched his head, pointing to the west. Fenris abandoned his horse thensprinted to the north, towards the fire.

The anchor flung sparks as Evelyn wheeled her mount in a circle. She was close to opening a Rift here on the road, and she was spending all of her energy fighting it. Cole yelled words she couldn't understand at her. Abelas turned his hart directly into the forest and drove it in the direction Hurel pointed without looking back. And a dozen darkspawn crashed out of the trees to the east, which overshadowed everything else.

Sera's arrows flew fast, taking down two before they could react. She and Iron Bull in rearguard were the only ones to escape the bottleneck, and they rushed in to cover their trapped comrades. Iron Bull provided a shield for the elf firing behind him and swept his sword in a wide circle to get the darkspawn's attention but keep them back. Varric threw a dagger from his horse and was rewarded with a squelch as another fell. A wall of fire from Dorian terrified the horses but allowed Rina to push it through their enemies with a gust of wind. The fire burned through them quickly, leaving Bull to mop up the few survivors.

Evelyn logged this all mechanically as she wrestled with her unruly hand. The dark voice of the Inquisitor returned and roared inside her mind, commanding her to open a gate to the Fade and leave this chaos behind. Cole pushed himself closer to her until he was near enough to touch, then spoke in a voice that cut through everything. He chanted the elven words that Solas had used in the Fade, over and over again. The voice quieted. Her hand stopped throbbing, and she looked around.

The darkspawn were dead, corpses still burning. Iron Bull and Sera picked them over. Hurel had rushed off after Abelas, Varric and Cassandra after Fenris. Rina stared at her and Cole with an open mouth, but when Evelyn turned in her direction she snapped it shut and went blank. Everyone seemed confused but unhurt, so she focused back on Cole.

"Cole," she said urgently, "how did you know what to say? Is he nearby?"

Cole twisted his fingers in his horse's mane and looked to the sky. "Rocks and fear. He needs to come through but gives chase. The threads that hold the door are weak. The vengeance of the Inquisitor rises."

"Are those his thoughts? Is Solas hurt?"

"Pride cannot hurt. The sun cannot melt itself because it is already full of melting." He grabbed her hand and said, "Listen."

A voice rose up from inside her, the same one that had warned her of a trap. _Not yet, little one. It's too soon. Look for my guardian and look for the slave. They need you more._

She jerked at yelling from over the hill, where smoke curled up towards the sun. She spurred her horse forward as fast as she could, cresting it at a canter. Fenris dug into the ashes of a former house. He pulled something out from under a collapsed wall. It was a human shape, moving slightly. Evelyn came to a stop and jumped to the ground as he rubbed dirt from its face. A woman's face. Her clothes were singed and dirtier than a barman's cloth, and her skin blackened with soot, but she appeared unburned.

The woman coughed and opened her eyes. They were an unmistakable blue that looked up at Fenris with weary humor. He scowled but the hands that played over her face were gentle. "Hello, dearest. It's so good to have you saving my life again." She looked over at Evelyn, who gaped. "And Inquisitor. Nice to see you, too. Thanks for killing Corypheus for me."

Varric's cleared his throat at her elbow. "Your Grace. I believe Hawke's whereabouts are now relevant. Let me provide them. She's apparently burning down old houses in the Kocari Wilds like a lunatic."

She found her voice. "Thank you, Varric. As always, your reports are so very useful."


	7. Storytelling

The sanity of an established camp was heaven. Scout Harding took in their bewildered state and found them food, fresh water and medical supplies in record time without even a question. As the dwarf withdrew as quietly as she'd come, Evelyn made a note to mention a raise in her next report. Maybe even attend once of the dance activities when they got back to Skyhold, Maker help them all.

She sank onto the ground gratefully. Cole and Rina, both with a knack for animals, had rounded up and soothed the horses. Once Hawke was pronounced mostly injury free, they'd searched the area to make sure no fire was still burning, then set off for the nearby camp. Hurel had returned with little explanation, only that he and Abelas wished to examine a site nearby where a disturbance had been. She'd sent Bull and Sera back with him, to protect them from darkspawn in name, but to gather information for her in truth. Rina remained with her group on the way to camp, explaining that their Order's mental connections would allow her to lead the investigating party to them easily when they were done.

Evelyn had tried to ask the Champion some questions, but she'd begged for a little time to rest, and with Fenris as her backup no one argued. Her mount had been killed by darkspawn two days earlier, so he'd insisted on riding double with her, despite her protests that she could walk a mile on her own. Those words were the only he'd spoken since they'd found her, and he gripped her less like a lover and more like a jailor during their ride. Hawke didn't seem to notice. Evelyn wondered if she really was insane.

Now they sat in a loose circle far enough away from the main camp to avoid any listeners but Leliana's. With the Nightingale, only the Black City was far enough away, and even there it would be wise to whisper. Cassandra and Dorian flanked her, with Cole providing a buffer between the mage and the aggressive elf. Fenris sat close to Hawke without touching her, and it was clear to Evelyn that he was acutely aware of her body. When she moved he moved with her, left to right, always staying in sync. And when Varric, on her other side, muttered something that made her laugh, Evelyn saw the tension drain out of him. She raised her eyebrow. He caught her expression and shrugged, faintly smiling.

Dorian, ever the diplomat, called out, "So he does have a smile! I was beginning to wonder if he'd lost it on the journey."

Evelyn tried to kick him, and he shifted out of the way. Fenris growled, but Hawke leaned over and kissed his cheek. "He does get that way with strangers, but don't worry, he only bites me." She chuckled when he frowned.

"He would smile more if you stopped losing yourself," Cole said. "His smile is inside yours, but sometimes he can't find you to take it out."

Hawke looked uncomfortable, but quickly smiled. "Well that's a singular way of putting it, I must say. But not to worry, I'm certainly finished with this errand. And a rousing success it was, too!"

"I wasn't aware arsonists were in such high demand," Dorian said. "If my family ever hits hard times, it's nice to know I have something to fall back on. Besides my devilish good looks, of course." He winked at Cassandra.

"I didn't burn down anything. The fire was kind of a side effect. I think. It was hard to follow."

"I know I'm lost. Why don't you start at the beginning?" suggested Evelyn.

Fenris leaned in closer. "For example, where you went instead of Weisshaupt. Anyone could have taken a message to them, it didn't have to be you. What were you really up to?"

"Such little faith in my word! You wound me, dearest. Actually, I was intending to go to the fortress. I owed it to Stroud to stand in his place." She bit her lip. "He died because of me. He had friends. Plus, I knew you would be looking for that slave group in the Imperium so it was sort of on the way. But yes, it is true that I didn't entirely, completely make it there. On the way I ran into Elissa Cousland in a tavern, and we somehow exchanged jobs. I think she got the better end of the deal, personally."

Varric interrupted. "Wait, are you telling me that you stumbled across the Queen of Fereldan, in a bar? Please tell me you got drunk together and remember every word."

"No such luck, we were stone sober the whole time. She was keeping a low profile, pretty well. Her name might be famous, but without the crown she's just another person. Granted, a person whose face is on a coin, but it's not a very good likeness. Zevran, that assassin bodyguard of hers, was anything but inconspicuous, but I gathered that was part of the show. Make him the memorable one. Anyway, she wanted to go talk to the Grey Wardens already, and I knew they'd respect her more than me, so she took the messages for me. In trade, I agreed to look for some things she needed here in Fereldan. She said they'd be near the remains of Lothering in the Wilds, so I figured I couldn't get too lost."

She fished around in the sack they'd found outside of the fire zone. "And I didn't! Behold, my reward." She removed a handful of dragon scales and a tarnished silver amulet and flourished them.

Varric spoke first. "That's why you traveled a thousand miles? For a dirty necklace and some scales? I've never met the Queen, but her taste in valuables is certainly esoteric."

"You've traveled with both of us enough to know that amulets are sometimes deceptive in their value," said Eveyln. "Who knows what this one might do? But Hawke, if you needed dragon scales, we have a storeroom full of them in Skyhold. We can't seem to stop running into the things."

"To our endless delight," muttered Cassandra.

"Oh believe me, Herald, I would have loved to have taken a shortcut. But Elissa said that I had to find some specifically from here, by the house you found me at. I gathered she'd killed it during the Blight. Digging them out of the ground was a pain, but hey, I always follow orders." Fenris elbowed her. "When I want to. That was actually the easy part. It was just spadework. Getting the amulet was Fade-work."

Hawke paused for groans from her audience and a round of applause from Varric. "Please feel free to lift that for your next book. Anyway, I did some highly technical magic to reveal a chest inside the house and found this. Elissa had been hoping for a necklace and a ring, but there wasn't any ring that I saw. Not that I had much of a chance to look. Opening the chest triggered some kind of spell that lit the house up like a candle. I flung my sack out the window to keep it safe, then mixed my own fire inside of the existing flames to keep me safe."

Dorian looked confused. "How's that again?"

"Well, when you cast fire, it never hurts you, right? It's like it recognizes you. I figured maybe I could sort of make the other fire think that too. Or something. I didn't have a lot of time to think it up, but it seemed to work. What it did not protect me from was the complete collapse of a building, but luckily my shining knight in leather armor was on hand to save me." She batted her eyes at Fenris, who bared his teeth in an approximation of a smile.

"That explains why you're here. It doesn't explain why I had to learn about it from the dwarf," he said.

"I couldn't risk sending you word. I had no idea where you were and our messages are not unreadable to the persistent. Elissa told me that I might not be the only one after whatever I found, and I had to keep complete secrecy. She gave me that look she gets where she's thinking about how good your head might look on the end of a stick, so I didn't push it. I risked word to Varric, since it only required one letter to a known place, and I thought he might be in a position to send me help. When I got the message that he was coming this way, I knew you would follow, and we could all have a nice reunion in my hometown. And here we are!"

Fenris sighed. "You're an impossible woman, Hawke. And extremely annoying."

"Impossible not to love and annoyingly adorable, I'm sure is what you meant to say." She looked at Evelyn. "You're welcome to examine this stuff, if you want. I probably owe you that much for your good timing. I promised Elissa I'd deliver these to Denerim, but I'd trust you to do that as well if you decide to. Let me know. Right now, I hear a stream nearby and I could really use a bath." She stood up and ran her hands through her hair.

Dorian sat forward. "My dear ex-Viscountess, if you need any assistance in bathing I would be more than happy to -"

Fenris's snarl cut him off. "Keep away from us both, mage. Especially her." Hawke tugged him away lightly, asking if he'd brought any nice smelling soap as they walked off. The rest of the group stood and watched them go.

"Maker, Dorian, do you have no sense at all? Are you trying to get him to attack you?" Cassandra asked, irritated. "He's dangerous."

"Seeker, I'm not sure if attack is the right word. He's very handsome, you know, and I've had some success with others in that area already." He smiled bitterly. "But I don't like being hated, especially when I've had no chance to cause it on my own. Still, I will endeavor to remember my manners in the future to spare our overworked healers."

He bowed slightly and walked back to camp. Cassandra and Cole followed him, taking the sack of items with them, but Varric stayed where he was. They watched as Hawke teased Fenris in the distance, then grabbed him and pulled him into passionate kiss. Evelyn looked away, not sure if she was trying not to intrude or trying not to think about her own distant warrior. Varric said, "You might want to find them a place to camp away from the rest of the group. Their reunions can be… vigorous."

She stared at him in surprise. "You sound jealous. Is there a history there?"

"Andraste's chiseled calf, no! No offense, Your Worship, but you humans aren't really on my level, if you know what I mean." He sighed. "But they do have a way of wrapping themselves in each other so there's no room for anything else. I guess it was nice to be on the inside for once. Have Broody be the one left out."

She shifted, unsure what to say, and he broke into a broad grin. "Hey, don't worry about it. They're going to give me a least two more steamy chapters for my romance series tonight and that will make Cassandra happy. When the Seeker's happy, we're all happy."

She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could say anything Abelas and the rest of the investigating group came into view. They looked grim but unmarked. Scout Harding came out to greet them and take their mounts. Iron Bull jumped off and walked over to her without pausing. She looked at him, questioning.

"Hey boss," he said, "I think you're gonna want to see what these guys found. It's one of those mirror things, like at Skyhold, and there's a lady's statue lying next to it. They say it's their goddess or whatever. They did some kind of hiding spell trick to keep them safe, but we'll want to send some people to go get them. Between us, she looks pretty surprised for a statue. And she's definitely not an elf."

* * *

><p>Two hours later, the mirror and the statue stood in the middle of their camp. Scout Harding and her men had followed Hurel back to the site and retrieved them both with record speed. Evelyn paced in front of them and tried to remember the parts of the story everyone knew, didn't know or couldn't know. Lying might be easy to do but it was very hard to track.<p>

"It's definitely an Eluvian," she said, and Abelas nodded. "I wonder what the key for this one is. And why it's in the middle of the forest."

He glanced at her with puzzled eyes. "While I have no knowledge of this Eluvian's specific key, all mirrors respond to the master key, which opens them all. It's the hymn of the Wolf, from the time of the rebellion. Only entrusted to the most senior protectors of the gods. You did not know that?" She stopped pacing and shook her head. He looked even more puzzled. "But Rina tells me that your boy knows it. He sang it on the path not far from here."

"Cole?" At the sound of his name he looked at her and waved. _Solas,_ she thought angrily, _another secret? _As his name entered her mind, the Inquisitor's voice rose clamored again inside her. Cole furrowed his eyebrows and made to stand up, but she waved him away and pushed the dark whispers down.

"I'm afraid Cole knows a lot of things that he doesn't know that he knows. And I wasn't aware that what he said had anything to do with Eluvians." She turned away from the mirror towards the statue, now upright. _That's definitely Flemeth,_ she thought. _In the flesh. Or the stone, anyway._ "What do you think happened to Mythal?"

Varric shot her a look she couldn't decipher, but Abelas didn't notice. "We cannot be certain. This is outside of even our experience. It is not a carved statue, as your Qunari friend suspected. It was made from a being, one that once contained the essence of Mythal. Hurel believes, and I agree with him, that she is not actually inside the statue now. Not only because we cannot believe it is her end, but our mages still feel her spirit moving in the world. Different, less what we remember, but there." He paused. "Tell me, is this what you expected her to look like?"

"Yes," she answered. "This was who I saw in the Fade."

"But she is not an elf. You did not mention this to me when we spoke."

She thought quickly. "Truthfully, I didn't really think about it. Physically walking in the Fade is much more confusing than even dreaming. It's hard to question tings. Had I thought about it, I suppose I might have said she looked human because I was human, or because she chose to be for reasons of her own. I guess the truth is, it seemed very normal to me that any goddess would be human. The arrogance of my race, I suppose."

"Of all races, perhaps. Even the elves took the stories of men and made them their own. It is no shame, Inquisitor."

At that point, Hawke and Fenris walked back into the camp, wet but happy. Hawke stopped short. "Is that Flemeth?" she said. "Maker, why would anyone want to make a statue of that old witch? And all the way out here?"

Varric put a hand to his forehead while Evelyn strove to show only slight questioning. Abelas narrowed his eyes and looked at them both. Hawke looked around. "What? Did I say something wrong?"


	8. Lies We Tell

"I can't tell if you're the best or the worst liar I've ever seen," Varric said later. "You get caught constantly but are never at loss for a new one that everyone will buy. Maybe you're just a savant."

She made a face at him. Abelas had seemed to accept her story that she knew of Flemeth as a legend of her people, but hadn't known that she and Mythal were one and the same. When she'd told him Flemeth's history, he'd seemed unsurprised his goddess would choose such a mortal vessel. That had helped, but she sensed she was losing credibility. She couldn't afford to show him how much deeper her knowledge of the woman ran. She didn't want him to know about the piece of old god Flemeth had taken into her, and she didn't want him to know about Morrigan and her child. Especially Kieran.

Cassandra sat next to Varric on a log and poked at the small fire. Sera grabbed at sparks as they flew off. The four of them had retreated after her verbal dancing to try and make some sense of what was happening. Hawke's sack lay on the ground.

"I could say the same to you," she said. "You never told me you knew the statue was Flemeth."

"First, Your Worship, not telling stuff you know about is not the same as lying. It's also much easier. Second, I didn't even know you knew who she was. I figured you had no idea, and in front of the ancient, crusading elf was not really the time to bring it up." His face flickered in the light. "I'm starting to get a really bad feeling about what's going on, though."

Sera rolled onto her back. "What is going on? This whole thing used to be a lot easier, yeah? Fight Coryfeetius, close up sky holes, try not to get sliced open too much. Simple stuff. Now it's all mirrors and goddesses and mess. The only good thing was burning down a house and we didn't even get to do it."

"When it comes to speculating about goddesses, I'll stick with Andraste. But Flemeth, that I can guess at," said Varric. "Hawke told me she first met her around here, showed up as a dragon to scare off some darkspawn. She gave Hawke an errand that sort of reanimated her up near Kirkwall, kind of like a death do-over. The Hero apparently killed a dragon outside of a house nearby, a house with some magical protections in it. We found that hunk of rock not two miles away. And I don't know if anyone noticed, but that statue had a ring on it that looked a lot like the amulet Hawke found. I don't trust the coincidence."

"You think that Flemeth lived here?" Cassandra looked around, nose wrinkled. "Hardly a comfortable existence."

"Yeah, and if she was an elf goddess, or had one inside, the mirror thing was probably hers too. Merrill, a Dalish we knew, crazy but full of information, said they were portals from ancient elves. Maybe this is Mythal's personal one."

Evelyn shook her head. "I think the one we found in the temple was Mythal's. Though I guess they could have more than one. Gods probably get special service." She considered. "But Abelas said he didn't know what the key is, and he probably would if it was Mythal's. So maybe not."

"Either way, Your Worship, something bad happened to Flemeth here on her home turf. She was a scary lady. I don't like to think about what could stop her."

She studied her hands silently. The voice from the path came back to her, below the crackling of the fire. _Not yet, little one._ She shivered.

Cassandra's eyes sharpened. "Is something wrong, Inquisitor? Something else wrong, I mean," she amended. "Clearly very little is right at the moment."

Could she offer this much trust? It sounded crazy even to her. But maybe it was time to let someone else share her thoughts, at least on this. She hung her head lower. "I think that Mythal, or Flemeth, or whoever -"

"Flemythal," Varric said. Sera high-fived him from the ground.

"Right, okay, Flemythal, that's good. I think she's kind of talking to me. Like, inside of my head." She looked through the curtain of her hair at her friends, trying to judge their reactions. "I hear a voice sometimes in me, but it's not me, and I'm starting to think it's her."

Cassandra had a neutral face. "What sort of things does she say?"

"Warnings, mostly. She warned me about lying to Abelas, that he was baiting a trap when we talked once. She told me on the path on the way here, when things got chaotic, that it was too soon to look for -" She broke off. She wasn't ready to talk about Solas. "To look for her. I needed to look for her guardian and the slave and help them first. I thought the slave was Fenris and the guardian Abelas, but neither of them seem to need my help. Not in any specific way."

She raised her head. "This all sounds insane, doesn't it?"

Sera nodded. "Oh yeah. But it's no different than the weird shit you always spout off, your Heraldness."

"Look, Inquisitor, from my own experiences, hearing voices is never a good sign. My brother heard a lot of voices before they killed him," Varric said. His voice softened. "But I can also say that you don't sound anything like him, nor have you tried to take over our minds, so you're probably not being possessed by anything. Yet."

"In a weird way it almost makes sense," Cassandra said. "Not that you can hear her, but what she said. The guardian of Mythal might be Flemeth, correct? She guarded her spirit for years, if we can believe the elves. And she certainly needs our help."

"But she's a giant statue with her face like a shocked fish!" Sera said and opened her mouth wide. "Unless we take a hammer to her, she's probably going to stay that way."

Evelyn turned to Varric. "How did you re-animate Flemeth before? In Kirkwall?"

"Oh yeah, it was no problem. We had to fight our way through a ton of abominations and some graveyard corpses to do a Dalish ritual on top of a hill by a creepy altar. Routine stuff. Hawke had to deliver this necklace thing to them to do it." They both looked at the bag between them. "Oh no. She wouldn't."

"You know she would. You met her. She thinks eight steps ahead."

Cassandra protested, "We said we would take that to Denerim."

"We will. Minus a witch." Evelyn looked at Varric. "Hawke's not to know about this. Promise me."

He rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Yeah, yeah. It would just make her scorch me. Don't worry, Your Grace. Like I said, I'm good at not telling the stuff I know."

* * *

><p>She walked back to her tent the long way, checking the perimeter of the camp. The outer guards nodded to her, then focused their attentions back on the forest. She approved. Hawke and Fenris's tent was on the very outskirts, and from the sounds inside he was no less aggressive with his lover than with his enemies. Thoughts of Cullen came to her unbidden, and she walked more quickly to leave them behind. She'd read the letters from her advisors earlier in the day. Josephine's had been witty, Leliana's dry and informational and Cullen's formal and exact. All correct attitudes when communicating with their leader. She'd read Cullen's twice, searching for any mirror of the misery she felt, but there was nothing. Maybe it was for the best. She would have to lie to them all again when she wrote back anyway.<p>

Evelyn was almost to her tent when she heard low voices to her right. She stopped and stepped closer warily. She relaxed when she saw Dorian and Iron Bull sitting between two trees. They hadn't seen her approach, and she watched, curious. Iron Bull sat as motionless as Flemeth's statue, but Dorian's hands were busy tearing at nature. Grass, leaves and sticks were shredded beneath him.

"Nature really is insupportable," he said. "It's impossible to keep oneself clean here, much less one's clothes. I'll have stains on every outfit for the rest of my life. At least I was able to take a bath after the two lovebirds had finished muddying the water."

Bull sighed. "Dorian, you've gotta let that guy stop getting under your skin. He hates everyone. He even hates his friends. It's not personal."

"Exactly. It's not personal. My magic, my country, my lifestyle. The hate is never personal." He tore another blade of grass in half. "Mother Giselle gave me another chat about my poor influence on our esteemed leader before we left. I'm not sure which thing she hates the most, but she certainly hates all of them. My father, well, he only hates one, but he hates it enough to make the others immaterial. And this elf…"

He laughed, the sound dropping into the night like a pebble in a hollow well. "He's attractive. I can't help the fact that he is. And even if he cares for women now, as a slave in Tevinter he certainly slept with men. The magisters would never have let him alone. When he looks at me with cold eyes, my head knows he's only seeing Tevinter. I know, but I don't feel. They're the eyes of my father. Or the boy who rejected me before I became the perfect specimen I am today. Or the man who had me for two months before taking his wife, and three months after that. Or the women who try to ensnare me even while they loathe me."

"So screw them. You can't let other people's shit mess you up. I lived under the Qun my whole life. Now I don't. When the rules stop working for you, you throw them out." Bull sat forward, elbows on his knees.

"The Imperium's rulebook is a little less renounceable, I think, when you are the scion of a great house. And I am far too fond of creature comforts to let that all go." He paused. "Maybe it would be different if I were like you. You have your Chargers, you have friends. Your rulebook could be rewritten into something better. In all of Thedas I have only one friend, and our lovely leader is a dear but also a very busy woman."

"Shit man, you know you've got more friends than that. Every one of her people would step to the line for you, die for you, and not because she'd order it. You're their friend. And I can't believe I'm saying this about a damn Vint who's not in my squad, but that includes me."

Dorian's smile glittered. "That almost sounded affectionate. Best be careful you don't lose your edge. You know I only sleep with men who despise me. Lucky for me that leaves such a large field."

He stood and strode in her direction before she could react. His face broke slightly when he saw her, but he didn't stop. Iron Bull leaned back against the tree and sighed. "I told you that elf was gonna be trouble, boss."

* * *

><p>She found him outside her tent, face haggard. When he saw her, he sprang forward with a smile that almost reached his eyes. "My lady, let me apologize for my unseemly outbursts, wherever they may occur. I remain, as always, dedicated to your service." He bowed and kissed her hand.<p>

Her eyes never left his face. "You don't have to do this."

"Who would I be if I didn't? The swearing of allegiance to a beautiful lady is a cornerstone of my image. Come now, don't ask me to give up my identity."

She squeezed his hand and didn't let go. "Hawke told me that she and Fenris leave for Kirkwall tomorrow. They're anxious to be home."

He relaxed. "Ah. Forgive me if I don't attend the good-bye ceremony but my grooming schedule has gotten completely out of hand during these forested weeks. I must catch up."

"I'll make your excuses. Maker knows we need you looking your best - how else will morale be maintained?"

"Why, Inquisitor, I wasn't aware your morale was so dependent on my handsome features."

"I meant Scout Harding. She's given herself a good vantage point of your tent for a reason, you know."

He chuckled. "It's nice to be appreciated." He looked back towards the woods. "I should probably apologize to the meddlesome Qunari."

"Probably. I wouldn't kiss his hand, though. I don't think he washes nearly so regularly as the rest of us."

"Oh, I think I can find something more interesting to kiss," he said, grinning. He looked at her seriously. "Are you writing to Cullen soon?"

She looked away, hurt. Dorian gripped her hand in wordless apology. "I'll send a report to the Commander tomorrow, I hope."

"Good. I didn't mean to bring you pain. It's just, if Hawke and her lover don't leave as planned, you may want to ask him to send an extra Templar or two here." He smiled ruefully. "The elf really does get to me. If venting with words stops working, there are worse things that could come."


	9. Clearing

In the morning, Evelyn hid herself away in a quiet spot to compose a report that had enough truth that Leliana wouldn't give her away, but not so much that every soldier in Fereldan would beat a path to the Wilds. _Found traces of Mythal along with another Eluvian. Abelas confident she is still in this world. I may be possessed, but not in a bad way._ She scratched out the last part and groaned.

Hawke laughed behind her. "I always hated writing those things, too. You should really consider getting a seneschal. They're amazing with paperwork."

"Find me one who can organize my brain and keep all my thoughts a secret and you're on," she said. "And don't say Varric. Cullen said if I ever let him write the reports again he'd mutiny. Too many innuendos."

"He does have his own style." Hawke sat next to her. "How is the Knight-Commander, by the way? Last time I was at Skyhold you two seemed pretty friendly." She waggled her eyebrows. Evelyn's jaw tightened, and she didn't reply.

"Ah, I see. Look, don't give up on him. It took me years to lure Fenris in and even more to get him over himself. Cullen's been through a lot, but I know that he's loyal. And good at heart. He hated mages as much as anyone, but he believed in me when it counted."

Evelyn wiped her eyes. "How do you and Fenris deal with it? Being apart, with secrets?"

"I think you got a perfect demonstration! He snarls, I smile, we work out our feelings with enthusiasm, we move on." She smirked. "The one who's scared the other the most has to make their penance. But that's just what works for us. Fenris is physical, everything right on the surface. Cullen seems a little more internal. He probably wants to talk. Not my style."

Evelyn nodded. She thought about how many letters of perfect honesty she'd written him that burned in past fires. Hawke glanced away. "I'm no good at relationship advice, Inquisitor. But if you can't be honest, be passionate, and if you can't be passionate, be patient. I'm sure it will work itself out." She stood. "I really came to tell you that we're leaving and to thank you for your help and hospitality and all of that garbage. I'm sorry if Fenris riled your people up. I've sent word to Elissa that you're taking on my errand for me, so if it goes wrong now, it's all on your head."

Her eyes sparked, and Evelyn wondered how much she guessed. "Thanks, Hawke. It's been good to see you. Have a great time in 'Kirkwall'." She made no effort to hide the sarcasm. Hawke was no more honest than she.

Hawke grinned. "Home sweet home is where you make it, my dear."

* * *

><p>The next few weeks passed peacefully but boringly. She carried the amulet with her at all times, trying to come up with a plan. Secretly she hoped that it would help bring out the voice in her again, but it never did. They likely needed the Dalish to help unlock it, if her suspicions of its contents were right, but she didn't know of any clans in the area and Leliana had answered the question with a negative. She'd yet to come up with a plausible reason to give Abelas why they needed to be somewhere else when he insisted Mythal's spirit was close, and even if there was one, she didn't want the elf to come with her.<p>

Harding sent out regular patrols, with and without Mythal's protectors, sweeping the area and bringing back what information they could. The area was fairly deserted, but they managed to seal several openings to the Deep Roads and take care of a few bandits. The fighting was the only thing that settled her. She itched to move, to do something. She hated sitting and waiting for something to happen and realized how used she was to having the world bend itself to her will at a moment's notice. _Poor little boss of the universe_, she thought.

Except for her, the group seemed happy. With little risk of attack, and no reason to ride daily, people settled down. Hurel continued to join in their gatherings, and even made a friend of Sera. Inquisition and Fereldan military forces came through with news and provisions, and at times the camp felt more like a party than an expedition. And, to her quiet delight, Dorian and Iron Bull began spending more time together outside of their tents, and the sardonic edges in their smiles changed to something gentler.

One afternoon, after another routine report, Harding walked back to her tent with her. Evelyn looked down at her a little amused, as the usually chatty dwarf was twitchy and silent. Eventually she stopped them both, laughing. "Okay, you are the worst Wicked Grace player I've ever seen. What is going on?"

Harding jumped, then sagged her shoulders. "Yeah, I'm not really cut out for this life. Looking for secrets, yes. But I prefer when I can reveal them immediately." She looked around. "It's really important, though. Elen's group said they found the same old forest as usual, but that wasn't true. He's waiting for you, says it's your ears only. He wouldn't even tell me about it." She sniffed.

She thanked her and walked in to her tent. An elven man sat quietly, but stood and saluted when she entered. He had the look of the Emerald Graves. She recognized him as not only one of Harding's scouts, but one of Leliana's men as well. She smiled. "Elen, isn't it? What is it that you needed to tell me?"

He spoke in a lilting voice. "Inquisitor, my report. On our patrol, I ran across a small group of The People. Their leader, Adrel, knew of your presence in these woods and begged an audience with you. However, he requested a meeting with you alone, and that I tell only you about it."

She spoke slowly. "Surely he realized that I would never agree to it. Though I have great respect for the Dalish, I can't afford to walk into potential traps alone."

"Yes, Your Grace, I know. He would also come alone, and would submit to a search by me for weapons before I left you." He hesitated. "He exhorted me in the strongest terms, and swore on all gods that you would not be harmed. I believe him. It seemed he had been waiting for a scout group with a leader of The People to bring the request back to you to provide this understanding."

"It could also be that he judged you would be most willing to believe a lie."

"That is also true," he said. "Adrel gave me one thing to tell you, to convince you of his worth. The message is that you are the only _shem _- sorry, the only human he will ever call a friend."

Her blood ran cold. She looked for a lie in Elen's face and saw nothing, but of course that was meaningless. She was sure he had been given the message as he'd said. "Tell me, did Adrel have the face markings of your people?"

"_Vallaslin_? Of course, Your Grace," he replied with surprise. "It's how I knew him as brother."

She chewed on the inside of her lip. Her thumb traced the outline of her anchor and remembered fingers sparking with magic over it. She nodded sharply, once. "When would he like to meet?"

"Tomorrow night, if it pleases you. I will take you to the meeting place he chose."

She nodded in dismissal. He stood to leave. "Wait," she said. "I know that you're sworn to the Nightingale. Won't you have to report this to her?"

His face was blank. "I serve your cause, Inquisitor. If you ask it, I will. Otherwise, I will keep my silence, though it will cost. And if you are not kept safe, may Elgar'nan, god of vengeance, give me strength to answer for it." He left.

* * *

><p>Clouds covered the sky as they slipped out of camp, a mixed blessing. Moonlight would have lit their way but made them easier to see. Elen walked sure-footedly through the murky woods, so she tried to match his steps as best she could. She wondered if she should be worried that it was so simple for her to walk through their perimeter unnoticed, even granted her knowledge of their patrols.<p>

When they stepped into a clearing, Elen looked at her as if he expected she would know where they were. Desperate not to let her followers know how little directional sense she had, she looked around. She saw deep furrows on the ground, as if something heavy had been dragged across it. She took a guess. "Is this where they found the statue?" Elen nodded, then tensed as a figure moved out of the trees silently, like a ghost. She stared at the strange elf intently as he approached, but she saw no echo of Solas in his movements, no sign of his soul in his eyes. Hopes she hadn't voiced grew hard inside of her.

The two elves spoke together quickly in their own tongue, gesturing at her. Elan quickly checked Adrel for weapons, then saluted her. As he melted back into the forest, she felt fear for the first time. How long had it been since she'd truly been alone with a stranger? She still carried her daggers, but Adrel didn't seem to mind. His gaze never left her face. She realized that he hated her.

"Inquisitor and so-called friend to The People, I am glad you chose to meet," he said. His voice was rough and emotional, for a Dalish elf, and contained nothing of the serenity she associated with Solas. Her heart hardened still more.

"You know who I am?"

"Tales of you have swept through all corners of Thedas, even the small, rotten corners still held by us. The mark on your hand reveals you. And I was told by one who knows that you are a friend and _shemlen_, however hard that is to believe."

"Proud of me, is he?" she groused, startling a laugh out of him.

"Pride! Yes, indeed, that he has for you, but none for himself. More's the pity. That is all we will say of that matter." He gave her a look that brooked no dissent.

"If I'm not here to meet a friend, what is this meeting for?"

"_Shem_, so eager to move forward, never looking underneath their feet. It would be well of you to move carefully, Inquisitor, now that you are so large, lest you crush everything before you." He grimaced. "But I have been given a charge, and I will execute it. I am to deliver you help, in exchange for a favor. Fair trade."

"What help will you give?" Evelyn asked. "I don't doubt your sincerity, but I'm not aware of needing anything."

He laughed. "So you do not need a First of The People, versed in rituals? Perhaps one that could unlock an amulet of resting, given a holy place?" He gestured to the clearing around them and cocked his head.

Her hand flew to the amulet she wore around her neck, and his eyes mocked her. "Yes, Inquisitor, that's the one."

"And the favor you need?"

"The removal of the _vallaslin_ from my face," he spat.

She blinked. "I don't know how to do that. Surely your own people are better able to help. Why do you even want it?"

"I was promised you would know," he said. His hands were talons at his side. "By the same one who told me you were in need. My people have no knowledge of their removal. It's never done. But in my dreams he showed me what they truly mean, and I no longer want it branding me."

She made no response, and he continued. "The marks are of slaves, to show which master owns you. I am no slave, to _shem_ or elf, and I will not be made to be one. The bare-faced ones in the alienages are freer than I."

"I sympathize," she said, and she did, "but I don't know how to do it. I'm afraid I can't offer fair trade." The voice of the goddess rose inside her. _The anchor sets many things straight, little one. It closes and opens much._ She looked at Adrel again, so angry in front of her. Help the slave.

She raised her hand, and the anchor glowed with its constant power. She held it to his face and felt it shift its form under her skin. The anchor always felt hungry, ready to tear and rip, but now it softened into something sweeter. The energy jolted her with a wave of pleasure, and she gasped and closed her eyes. Adrel's face stayed in front of her, but changed to Cullen's as she traced her hand over it, erasing the marks where she caressed him. His eyes were dark with desire, and he mouthed her name. She bit back a moan and forced herself to break the connection. The face vanished, and she stepped back, relieved.

Adrel stared at her. He hadn't moved, though his face was smooth. "It's done," she said hoarsely. Fatigue hit her, and she fought the urge to sit.

He touched his face but obviously felt no difference. "How do I know?" he demanded. "Open your eyes!" She did as he asked, and he stepped towards her. The moon came out from the clouds, shining down into the clearing. He studied his reflection in her eyes and gave a hard smile.

He held his hand out to her. "Fair trade, _shemlen_. I will not take a gift from your kind."

She handed over the amulet. He stalked to the place where the mirror must have stood and threw it to the ground. He passed his hands over it once, twice, three times and muttered elven words. He backed away as the amulet snapped and a figure rose out of the ground. As soon as she'd stopped rising, he turned back to Evelyn. "A favor for a favor. Goodbye, Inquisitor. Tell your shadow it is too bright."

She gave him a confused look, but he was already leaving. She turned back to the woman standing in front of her. Flemeth gave her a piercing stare and smiled, not unkindly. "Well, well. You're not what I expected. Hello again, Herald."


	10. Barriers

Flemeth smiled at Evelyn's silence. "So little to say? The last time we met you were positively brimming with helpful suggestions for me. And my daughter."

Evelyn felt her solitude even more completely than before. Her daggers would be no use against the witch in any of her forms. This was a time for caution. _You are too powerful for fear,_ the dark voice whispered. _Show her your strength._ "Who were you expecting, if not me?" she asked.

"No one you know. Or perhaps you do. Either way, it doesn't seem to matter now, does it?" She looked around. "It seems some of my possessions have been removed. I hope you're taking good care of them."

"Yes, the statue of you made a great centerpiece in our fortress. Really brightened the place up," she said, slightly horrified as she spoke. She wondered if Elen would come looking for her soon.

The witch laughed. "Interesting to find so many heroes with quick tongues these days. Or perhaps it's only Grey Wardens who are somber in their duties. You needn't worry, by the way, you're not alone. Your shadow is faithful, even when you don't wish it."

Light spilled from her hand and slid past Evelyn, illuminating the area behind her. Cole stepped forward. "It's hard to hide when there's no moon to stop me shining, but she still didn't see me. She always sees me."

"Don't worry, little one. She will see you when she needs to," said Flemeth. Evelyn started at the endearment. "So, Mythal's spoken to you. I thought she might. She has a soft spot for bitter females. I should know."

"I'm not bitter," she said.

Flemeth gave her a pitying look. "You're so angry that you've forgotten what it feels like not to ache. The golden walls of your cage are beautiful and contain all the heavens, but they vex you no less for that."

Cole spoke. "The guards want to free you, but their need is bigger than their want. They scold themselves for their weakness. It won't stop them from having your pieces. Josephine will take your voice, Cullen your body, Leliana your mind. They can't help themselves. Don't hate them."

"I don't hate them. I couldn't. I volunteered for my job." She raised her chin in defiance.

"You lie," Cole said. "The happiness and sadness mix like mud in water, and I can't help you anymore. I'll keep trying."

"It matters little," Flemeth said. "Your role is set. And there is always strength to be found in anger, if it's wielded the right way."

She was tired of riddles. "Where is Mythal? Is she still inside you? And what about what you borrowed from Kieran?"

"So many questions, just like an interrogation. No, she hasn't joined me in this awakening, and taken the soul that might have sustained my immortality. Still, it seems she was kind enough to extend me one more life to pay for all."

Evelyn scoffed. "You could have amulets scattered across all of Thedas."

"I could at that."

"Why would Mythal abandon her guardian?"

Flemeth chortled. "Her guardian! How fanciful. More partner than caretaker, in my mind." She grew thoughtful. "But were I her guardian, well, when does one leave a protector behind? When she finds a stronger one. I hope she's not misjudged."

"So you know where she is? Is she inside someone else?"

"Guesses are not knowledge, and my memory doesn't extend as far as my… statue's might have. I wouldn't want to disappoint you, little one." Evelyn ground her teeth. Flemeth continued. "Still, if she wants you to find her, she'll speak to you again, of that I've no doubt."

She played her last card. "Her protectors are here. From her temple. They're looking for her. If she needs protection, she should have them, too. Tell me where she is so I can take them to her."

Flemeth smiled. "I think for protectors to be worthy, they must do more than be led by the hand. If they are so worthy, why is it you who speaks to me and not them?"

_Because I don't trust them,_ she thought, _and I need her to explain what's happening to me._

"You're wise not to trust. Some traps are the ones we build ourselves." Evelyn glared at her. "Your shadow is not the only one who can see thoughts when it wishes. And besides, you're closer to all your goals than you realize. I've answered many questions, now answer mine. Where is my daughter?"

"I don't know," Evelyn said bitingly. "I think for mothers to be worthy, they have to want more than to steal their daughter's body." A thought struck her. "Do you think Mythal fled to Morrigan?"

Flemeth pressed her lips together. "Unwise to blame where you know nothing. You understand even less of me than you do of her. Morrigan is in thrall to a being is much more dangerous to her than I will ever be. To your last, I can't say. But it would be a surprising turn of events if she had." She stepped away, widening the space between them. "I thank you for your assistance, even given only to serve your own ends. Be well, Inquisitor. Don't forget that keys work both ways."

Evelyn remembered Varric's story, remembered Morrigan, and pulled Cole back under the shadows of the trees. After a tearing moment, a dragon lifted off and flew west, away from the lightening sky. She heard shouts coming from the camp, and Elen sprinted back into the clearing. She was exhausted already from the questions they would ask her. She realized she still knew nothing about Mythal, nothing about Solas, and nothing about her inner turmoil. She wanted to scream. Cole touched her arm and whispered, "Forget." Her weariness lifted, and she looked at him surprise. He smiled sadly. "It's only a small help."

She listened to the commotion all around them. "Sometimes that's all we need."

* * *

><p>Guards followed her, for so-called protection, everywhere she went in the days after Flemeth left. Orders from Leliana had been clear but unnecessary. The camp reached consensus without any extra input. She sometimes thought it was only her status as the Inquisitor that kept them from locking her in the stocks at night. A symbol could not be spanked for disobedience, though, so she remained free in name. In practice, it was like the early days of the Inquisition, when no one trusted her, and she twisted and pounded against their tightening grip on her life. It was worse for Elen, who didn't have her protections. He had been sent back to Skyhold in chains, to face the Nightingale's judgment. He was taking a punishment that should be given to her. She resented that most of all.<p>

She went to see him before they left, to try to apologize for what her actions had cost him. He didn't acknowledge it, only asked if she'd learned what she needed.

He needed it to have been worth it, she realized. She gripped his hand and lied with an easy heart. "Yes, Elen. It was essential."

* * *

><p>Her companions showed their anger in ways great and small. While she'd managed to contain much of the truth from the group at large, Cole had ensured they and her advisors knew almost everything - Flemeth, her daughter, the soul of the god that floated in Thedas. Solas, and the dark voice living inside of her, remained her only secrets and she guarded them even more fiercely in the face of their disapproval. She knew it wasn't fair to blame them. They felt disrespected, for the good reason that she had valued herself over them all. She tried to understand their hurt. But they showed no inclination to understand that she'd had to. Some things had to be done. Her contempt for their blindness built higher walls between them.<p>

Cassandra barely spoke to her. Only when they trained against each other would she offer words at all, hard and dry words of instruction or corrections to her form. When Evelyn tried to engage her on anything else, her face drew into angry lines, and she said nothing. The one response she got came after she threw her daggers to the ground and said, "Why even train me if you think I'm so stupid?"

Cassandra said heatedly, "If the Inquisitor takes herself into danger with no regard for the life she gambles, she needs to be able to defend it against anything. Pick up your daggers."

Sera was angrier for the risk that the camp had run, with a dragon so close. Over the weeks they'd gained civilians, refugees or spouses or children, and all she saw was the fear they'd suffered. Evelyn tried to explain that there'd been no danger, that Flemeth wasn't hostile, and Sera rolled her eyes. "How'd you know that, then?"

"I just know! And she wasn't, so what are you so mad about?"

"Oh sure, it's okay cause you were right. You know and we don't. You're the important one. If the rest get hurt, it's all acceptable losses as long as you get yours, yeah?" She stalked away, calling over her shoulder, "Your noblosity is showing again."

Cole kept his distance. The feelings in her he couldn't fix made him anxious and skittish. He was sharing blame from the group for not stopping her, for only watching, and he repeated their critical thoughts about him to himself until he was hoarse and exhausted. Iron Bull was disappointed in her as a leader, one who'd placed herself above the men under her command. He made more than one cutting reference to the loyalty he felt to the Chargers. Dorian simply tried to reason with her endlessly. She asked him if she promised to never do anything stupid again if he would leave her alone. He said that he would never trust her to keep that promise, or anything like it. So she couldn't, and he continued to argue.

Only Varric showed any sympathy, but it came with a heavy dose of guilt. "You do realize that you're the glue holding this operation together, right?" he asked one day in her tent. He silenced her protest. "I know you don't think so, that the troops will keep moving and the information will keep flowing, and in some ways you're right, but the heart of this thing? That's you."

"I didn't ask for that," she said.

"You accepted it."

"I had no choice."

"There's always a choice. You made us who we are, all of us. For some of us, you're all we have. Is it any wonder that we're insulted when you try to throw us away? And don't lie, Inquisitor, you've been trying for months to cut us loose. We just didn't realize you might try to die to do it," he said.

She flushed. "That's not true."

"The Chargers get job offers they didn't ask for. My publisher wants to see me urgently, but it's never urgent. Letters of reconciliation from House Pavus for Dorian. Cassandra's been encouraged to rebuild the Seekers, far away from Skyhold. We've noticed that the hand that sets these things in motion has a suspiciously green glow."

"You have lives. You have responsibilities. You don't need me anymore," she said. _I don't want you to need me anymore. Leave while you like me, not because you hate me._

He shook his head and stood to leave. "It's starting to feel like the other way around, Your Worship."

* * *

><p>She cried only in the Fade. It was safe in her dreams now. The darkness of the forest hadn't come to her in weeks, and the demons kept a wary distance. In early days, dark spirits had circled around her, sensing her power to release them into the world. They'd threatened, cajoled, seduced and begged to be released. They'd used her sorrows and her joys against her and tested for weak spots. More than once she'd almost broken, almost opened a Rift and let them through just to make it stop. Solas had shielded her, kept her whole.<p>

She had no weak spots now. Demons danced in the distance, watching her. She felt them probe her heart but find no purchase and no way in. So while she knelt sobbing in a desolate dreamscape, she celebrated as well. Her strength was unmatched in any world, and she needed no one to protect her. Blackwall might have betrayed her, her friends might despise her, Solas might have abandoned her, but she had made herself whole alone.

Eventually she realized a spirit was standing near her, unmoving, and had been for some time. She looked up. Instead of a spirit, Solas watched her, but a Solas she hardly recognized. He was emaciated and pale, his eyes dull. His weariness was a tangible force, here in the Fade, and she wondered what his physical body looked like if his dream of himself was this.

"What troubles you, my friend?" His voice was cracked, no longer smooth and assured.

She jumped to her feet. "What's wrong? What's happened to you?"

He swayed. He had trouble focusing on her. "I've been running. But I rest here now, with you."

She placed her hands on his shoulders and tried to give him some of her strength. "How did you find me?" she asked. "There's nothing here but emptiness."

"I felt your need. I -" He coughed, once, hacking and painful. "I'm so tired. I miss my brothers. I'm glad to have seen you again. I don't wish to die alone."

She gripped him fiercely. "I won't let you die. That's not the end I give my friends."

"My end has been written for a long time. Even you have no power over it. I only hope it can keep you safe." He placed his hand over hers, the one that held the anchor. Something feral and alien swirled across his face. "I never meant for you to have this burden. I was arrogant. I called myself Solas, pride, to remember its dangers and its price. Instead, I became the danger, and you paid."

She shook her head. "I don't understand. Tell me where you are, physically, I'll come and find you. We'll help you. We'll talk. Please, help me understand." Her voice rose, pleading.

A triumphant voice echoed around them, her own darkness both inside and outside. Its pleasure rolled off of every word. "So, you've come close enough at last. I'm afraid I must interrupt." A hand reached through the space beside her, as if through a curtain, and with a small crack Solas was gone.

"I'll be waiting, my lady."


	11. Reflection

She woke to shouts and confusion. Most of them were in her own head. Cassandra pushed her way into her tent, practically assaulting her night guard. Her mouth formed angry words, but Evelyn couldn't hear them. The voices in her head were loud and insistent and commanded all of her attention.

_The Eluvian, little one,_ Mythal ordered. _You must get to the mirror. He suffers._ A flash of Solas, restrained and bloody.

The Inquisitor laughed darkly. _Yes, the Eluvian. The truth lies within it, but only for you. Come alone, Evelyn._

A new voice, familiar, frantic. _No! Leave me. Smash it. This will end for you, just leave!_ Solas's desperation flooded through her, crashing her to pieces inside. She fought to hold on to her sense of self, to who she was. His essence wound through her and clutched at her will, trying to change it, to turn her from her purpose. The anchor howled in her hand and a Rift opened in the tent as she struggled to escape him, but he was everywhere inside her with terrible strength. Demons, the ones who'd watched her, poured through the Veil, and her guards drew swords. She tried to grab her own daggers but her muscles tightened, and she could do nothing but sink to the ground and hold on.

Blades slashed around her. The tent exploded in fire as Dorian's voice came, strong and precise. Cole slid past her, wraithlike, cutting into the intruders silently before slipping away. Arrows and bolts found tender places with deadly accuracy. A guard fell beside her, dead. Cassandra fought her way to Evelyn's side and grabbed her face. "Close it!" she screamed, and Evelyn stared at her without seeing. Her agency left her, and she felt blank inside. _Solas_, she tried to think. _We're in danger._

His desire bore down, unrelenting. _Promise me you'll go,_ he demanded. _Promi -_ A heavy hand struck him, and he vanished. She gasped and raised her hand, sending all the power she could to close what she'd opened. It shuddered and bucked under her hand but it sealed. She jumped up, daggers in hand, and attacked the remaining monsters in unthinking fury. Before long, they lay dead, evaporating, and the groans of the wounded were the only sounds that remained in her ruined tent.

She stood for a long moment and breathed, vibrating uncontrollably. Whether in fear or rage even she didn't know. He'd tried to magic her mind, control her! But he was hurt, bleeding and alone. Her thoughts raced. She didn't know what to do, and she needed to know. She always knew. _The mirror,_ whispered the Inquisitor. Her head snapped around. _Yes._ She moved towards the camp's center, swearing when she stumbled over the body of the guard. She had no time for grief.

A hand grabbed her. Cassandra's eyes looked at her furiously. "What were you thinking, Inquisitor? How can you be so reckless again and again?"

"It was a dream, I was -" She stopped. "I don't have time for this, Cassandra. Let go!" With the last she wrenched her arm away and ran. She dropped her weapons, afraid she might use them and step over a line she could never re-cross. She felt fragile inside, pieces still shifting out of alignment. Her friends pursued, yelling at the guards to stop her. She forced her hand to open the Veil, just a fraction, just enough to crack the air around her and keep them at distance. Demons threw themselves against the thinning Fade, but she held fast against them. She saw the mirror ahead and sped up.

Abelas stood next to it, flanked by Rina and Hurel, calm and waiting. If he felt fear at the Fade's kaleidoscope around her, he didn't show it. He inclined his head to her. "Inquisitor."

"How do I get through this?" she asked. She made it more command than question. "You said you knew the words to open it."

He raised his eyebrows. "But you don't know where it leads."

"I know my friend is there. I need to go after him."

Varric tried to grab her arm, jerked back at the energy pouring off her. "You can't go in there! Are you crazy? You could end up anywhere!"

"Solas is in there," she yelled at him. "He's dying! And he's mine, do you understand? You're all mine, and none of you is ever going to die!" Memories in her mind. All of their faces, pale and cold on battlefields before jerking awake at a healer's touch. The agony of seeing one fall in front of her. Holding them so close to her heart that they broke it. Blackwall's face as she sent him to the Wardens. Murderer, banished, but alive. He was hers. The Nightmare Demon had shown her retreating backs, their abandonment as she failed them one by one. That was the fear she'd kept locked away from them then, but now it was death, death, always death at her hands.

"Solas is happy," Cole whispered, and she wanted to strike him.

Abelas was ruthlessly gentle. "I do not know the words, Inquisitor. Its key is a secret to all but Mythal, and the full hymn of the Wolf is also unknown to any of us."

She clenched her fists. "Then what am I supposed to do?" she demanded. Her eyes widened. "Cole knows. You said he knew the words."

"That is correct," he said. "I suppose he would be able to open it." She'd started to turn, but something in his voice pulled her back. He wasn't prepared, and she saw a dark flash of triumph in his eyes before he could cover it.

Time slowed to a crawl, and her pieces slid around and locked into place. She stepped towards him. "Why is the key of Mythal a secret to her most loyal protectors? Why can you sense her, but not find her? Is she hiding from you?" Another memory. "Why did she warn me against you?"

He smiled. "Did she? How risky of her. And still you allowed me to join you, which only shows you are wiser than most of your kind. My Lord truly understood your heart."

"I don't understand."

"Clearly," he said, "but he will explain all. My master finally holds his prize and the truth you seek. The truth of your friends' betrayals of you, all this time."

Iron Bull growled. Sera nocked an arrow. "Oi. Speak sense, you." Abelas conjured a ward around the three elves, and the loosed arrow struck it and bounced away. He laughed.

"Your friends seem to wish you to remain in ignorance, Inquisitor."

"But you were protectors in the Temple, her closest guard. How could she have chosen people so disloyal in ignorance?"

"Why do warriors in a temple mean they are guarding it? Because they tell you so?" He stood straighter. "We are the most loyal of all in Arlathan, the bringers of justice. And Mythal's wrongs against the Elvhen were great. We went to her shrine and found her noble protectors, poured them into the Well. The Well of Sorrows, as it was, but whose sorrows? Her guardians grieved indeed when they paid for their crimes. We searched and waited, but Mythal escaped her justice for centuries, hiding in a way we could not see. You stripped her of that last remaining protection when you took the Well, and now My Lord has found her at last. Your friend, your _solas_, he has betrayed her a final time. I am sorry to have deceived you, but he could not know the truth. It is not so easy to trick a trickster, as Elgar'nan knows."

Throughout his explanation, Evelyn thought furiously, trying to find the right path. At his words, she stopped. "The god of vengeance? That's who you serve?"

"God of justice, to the innocent. He was only called vengeance by wrongdoers, quick one," he said. "He was betrayed by his own kind, those who have led you and manipulated you to their own ends. And he has chosen you above all but his own. He knows what you suffer. He will grant you the justice you need. He will give you back your self. But you must go through the mirror. You must release him to set the world right."

She hesitated, unsure. Her companions protested around her, but their voices were muted through the curtain of The Fade.

His voice floated to her softly. "Don't you want to know who bestowed the orb that branded you?"

Hurel moved, a dagger in his hand. Abelas fell without a sound, and Rina followed. Neither had time to react. The protective barrier vanished, and Cassandra rushed to grab him. He dropped the knife willingly. He spoke to her in words of quiet shame. "Enough words from the past. The time of the Elvhen is no more, and your people do not deserve the justice Elgar'nan would dispense. You and your friends have shown worth. I've walked here enough to know that more death is only more, not better. I trust in your wisdom to make things right, not simply just." He paused. "Don't follow Elgar'nan. Save your friend. Save Mythal. They are the gentle spirits we need. Forgiveness is the greatest justice."

His words decided her. She rounded on Cole. "Say the words. The hymn that's a key, that you used on the path. Say them!"

He cowered. Sera, of all people, stepped up to shield him from her temper. "Solas is happy," he whispered again. "He doesn't want this."

"I'm the Inquisitor. I'll say what is and isn't wanted. He's hurting. He needs help. Help him!" He flinched, and she felt ashamed. She lowered her voice. "Help me, then. Please, Cole. Feel my pain. You can help me. Please." She tried to send him her anguish.

Cassandra started to say something, but Cole was already speaking with closed eyes. The elven words tumbled out of him and made the mirror shimmer. Evelyn looked at the group. "None of you follow me, do you understand? It's too dangerous. This is my fight."

"Screw that, boss," Iron Bull said. "We protect you, wherever you go." Dorian nodded.

"Not here. Let me go. If I don't return, you have to keep this all going. You have tell Leliana. She'll know what to do. You have to tell Cullen." She lost her breath. She pleaded with Dorian, who stared at her with mutinous eyes. "You have to tell him."

Sera and Cassandra drew their weapons and moved to follow her. Varric flanked her other side. Cole stopped speaking and the mirror opened.

"Forgive me," she said. She quickly tore through the Veil. More demons appeared. Her friends spun to fight them, collapsing into formation as naturally as breathing. She stepped through and reached behind her, closing the tear as quickly as she could. _They can manage that many. No one will be hurt. _She didn't know if she believed her own words or not, but she had no choice. She turned to see a large circular room, with stone walls reaching higher than she could see. They were covered with elven runes. In the center Solas lolled, bound to a chair by his hands and feet. His face was bruised and blood dripped from a dozen wounds. She rushed towards him and knelt.

"Fen'Harel, our guest has arrived! Welcome, Evelyn. Such a pleasure to see you from the outside," the voice of the Inquisitor boomed.

She whirled and saw a tall elf, more muscular and broad than any she'd seen, standing beside the mirror. He grinned. "Yes, you recognize my words. I'm sorry I had to make you think they were your own. I'm Elgar'nan, Father of Arlathan. But excuse me. I don't want us to be interrupted."

He swung his fist. The Eluvian shattered.


	12. Prisons

She couldn't begin. Questions tumbled against each other in her mind and rendered her speechless.

"I can see you're confused, Evelyn. Quite natural, I assure you, and my manners have been regrettable." A chair materialized several feet away. "Please, sit. My proposal will take some time, and kneeling on stone is very uncomfortable."

She didn't move. He shrugged and sat. "Where is this?" she asked.

"A place in the Fade, as you call it, that no mortal has ever been to. In fact, you're only the third, besides myself, to set foot in it! Or fourth, depending on how you look at it. But there I go again being cryptic. Old habits, I'm afraid. It doesn't do for gods to just say things."

"So you really are a god?"

Solas stirred next to her and growled. "Self-titled." She turned back to him immediately. He looked weak, but his eyes were clearer than she'd feared.

The tall elf steepled his fingers. "When you're powerful enough, it seems to be the only word that fits. Regardless, I ruled Arlathon, have no doubt about that. But now I'm here, in a place made my prison by those who feared my power and wished to overthrow me." He snapped his fingers when Solas protested. "Hush, Fen'Harel. Wait your turn."

Evelyn shook her head. "Why do you keep calling him that? Fen'Harel is a wolf god, an evil spirit, right?"

Elgar'nan beamed at her, like a teacher at a clever student. "Exactly! And he sits before us, though in vastly different form I must say. The bare face doesn't suit you at all, _harellan_." He leaned forward, suddenly confidential. "In fact, he's the reason we're all here right now. Betrayal runs through his every line. Ask him whose orb he used to try to enter the Fade. Ask him who gave it to the darkspawn to tear open the sky. Ask him who put the events in motion that gave you the scar that changed your life."

She stared at Solas, who closed his eyes. Grief lined his face, brought stark by the paleness in his cheeks. "No more lies, deceiver?" Elgar'nan asked. "Or perhaps even you heed the call of justice, eventually."

He sighed and spoke quietly. "I'm no god, but yes, I am the wolf. I fought for freedom for my brothers and sisters, freedom from their self-styled gods. I stole the _foci_ from the so-called father, long ago. I wanted to hide it and weaken him. My brothers wanted a weapon. Things happened that I couldn't control. I came back to try to make things right. Corypheus was my choice. He was a poor one. The anchor you bear is my doing." He opened his eyes at last, and she recoiled from the wolf in them, no longer hiding. "You didn't need to know this, _ma falon_! I told you to leave me. Why could you not do as I asked, just one time?"

Applause rang out. "So prettily he tells it, doesn't he? Lies always spill so nicely from his lips. No mention of the thousands of cuts he's put on the lives of the Elvhen. And of course he blames you, as if discovering treachery is worse than perpetrating it."

Evelyn stood and backed away. She hit the chair behind her and sat with a thud. She tried to find anger, but all she felt was exhaustion. "This was you all along? So much death. Why? The help you gave us, finding Skyhold, showing me how to use the anchor, trying to convince me to wisdom…" And then the anger came, hot and strong. "You've been lying to me since we met, haven't you?"

"Yes," he said simply. She snorted.

"Even more than you know, Evelyn. He's kept secrets that made your mind more vulnerable than you guessed," the god said. "You don't mind that I call you by your name, do you? We've spent so much time together."

She smacked the arms of her chair. "Yes. Why were you speaking to me? How could you even do that? I thought -" _I thought I was going mad_.

He tipped his head at her anchor. "The _foci_ that gave you that mark was mine. It carried a large part of my power, and some of my essence. I could connect to it, even from this prison. I've grown stronger over the long centuries. While the orb was still whole, you were difficult to find, like a drop of colored water in an ocean. Once it was destroyed, you stood out in a desert. I knew you were my last chance of making things right. I needed you to come to me. I needed you to be unburdened by the world. You're a worthy vassal, Evelyn. Your mind is sharp and true."

Solas growled again, and the sound was more feral than ever. "Leave her be."

She ignored him. "If this is your prison, why did you smash the Eluvian? Wasn't it your door out?"

"Another good question. No, that door was useless to me. Mythal and Fen'Harel created it to allow only two elves to pass through it, themselves. They created a very clever key as well, a two part key that they thought unbreakable, even if an elf managed to bypass their magic. You've proven them wrong yet again, though they think themselves so wise."

"Two parts? I only had one, the hymn."

"Yes, the hymn known only to the Wolves, unknowable by any other. And the second part, Mythal's spirit herself. Without both, the lock would never turn."

She looked at herself, horrified. "Mythal really is possessing me? She's wearing me, like a piece of armor?"

Elgar'nan laughed gently. "No, nothing that simple. My _foci_ had one other effect, one that Fen'Harel wants you to know even less than his own complicity in your burden. When he stole it, he twisted a part of himself inside, to keep its location hidden from me. That piece lived on, and he fed it before giving it to the darkspawn pretender. When it branded your hand, he joined with you, irrevocably. He senses you, as I do."

There were no words for the revulsion that filled her. Solas winced, and she was glad. _Good. Feel my disgust_, she thought at him. _You've stolen my privacy without a word_.

"It's not that way," he said tiredly. "Only if you're feeling strong emotion, or thinking about me specifically, do thoughts come. I tried to block it as best I could, unless I needed to find you. It's how I knew you lived after Haven. It helped me keep you safe."

"Don't justify it," she snapped. "It was a violation." She turned back to the god. "But it doesn't explain Mythal."

"Who do you think stole my wife and the soul she carried? She speaks to you through him."

"It was given willingly. To give me strength to help the Elvhen," Solas said. "To stop enslavers like you from ruining us for all time."

"I had no slaves. They, too, gave themselves willingly to me."

"Because you cowed them with power, enchanted them into a worshipfulness they should never have felt."

Elgar'nan raised his eyebrow, and Solas looked away. The god smiled. "Yes, so you told your brothers. After all, a wolf must have his pack. You betrayed your gods, raised bloody rebellion throughout Arlathan. You even persuaded Mythal to cover you in her protections to aid your cause. For good, you said. For revenge. There was no justice in what you did, little wolf. Your brothers bit and tore through our nation and left us weak. Open to invasion. And when I was needed, you locked me away and left your people to die. You locked your brothers away and tried to rule in our place. And now where are the Elvhen?" He rose up, cold anger replacing the genial god. "You will face justice for what you've done to me and mine, _harellan_. I swear it in my name."

"You did that to your own people? For power?" She stared at him in disbelief.

He pulled at his bonds, scraping them across his arms. "No! Never. To free them. The so-called gods had perverted us, turned us into slaves for their own pleasure. They branded them with marks to show ownership, stole their bodies from them to live eternal lives. They called themselves Creators, but they were base men and women like the rest of us. It wasn't right to worship our own kind." His eyes begged her to understand. "But my brothers, they wanted to destroy what was and then remake society, set themselves in place of those we wanted to overthrow. It would have been just another kind of oppression. I argued with them. I tried. But they wouldn't listen. So with Mythal I had to… lock them away. I had no choice!"

"The words of tyrants everywhere. How many men have grabbed power claiming there was no other path? And yet you sought to free them again, using the darkspawn, to bring them back into the world and elevate yourself." Solas hung his head, silent. Elgar'nan appraised her. "You see what he is."

She did. She felt so very small and alone.

"I still don't know what good I am to you. The Eluvian is broken. We're all trapped here."

"Not true! You have the remnants of my _foci_ within you, the one that would open prison walls. Fen'Harel lacked the strength to use it, but I can, with your help. He can remain here, as a criminal, with Mythal at his side, and we'll return to the world. I have seen the injustices it holds, for both our people. The humans in the Imperium threaten us both. We can set that to rights. The world can have its peace. You can have your peace. Your hand won't trouble you anymore with me there to control it. Your life will return."

Elgar'nan's voice came tantalizingly across the room. "Aren't you tired of who you've had to become? No one caring about you, except what you can give them? Content to let you make their choices, until they disagree? I watched the things you chose not to see about them. They hold you at arm's length while you fight and claw to invite them into your heart. They've taken so much from you, Evelyn. They've even taken your name, the better to twist you into what they need." She heard whispered voices dance across the room, the voices of her friends.

"Your Worship." "Boss." "Herald." "My lady." "My dear." _"Ma falon_." "Your Grace." "She." Varric, Bull, Cole, Leliana, everyone she loved with the same names that took her away, made her less herself and more their need. "Inquisitor. Inquisitor. Inquisitor." She thought she'd been losing herself from the inside out, succumbing to madness, but it was their expectations that drove her away, deeper and deeper until she was everything to everyone but nothing to herself.

Her anger rose as she looked for a woman named Evelyn Trevelyan and could no longer find her. Where was the girl who'd drawn faces in Chantry books and pulled her sister's hair? Where was the woman who'd done nothing more with her evenings than read a book and dream? When had she allowed her happiness to drain away? Who'd buried her underneath this person of stone? Her supposed friends, the men and women who wanted nothing they couldn't control or understand. Compliance and perfection, no matter the cost.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "You're wrong. Cullen. He never loses track of who I am. He sees me clearly." His voice cut through the rest, speaking her name as he leaned on his office door. Whispering it as she slept.

Elgar'nan tutted. "Yes, Cullen, your brave warrior. He stands by you, like the oldest story. But you repay him with lies and secrecy, don't you? How many times have you shaded yourself with him, to keep him safe? For the good of the cause? How much of the true Evelyn does he even know? He knows you as a leader. You know that who he loves isn't all you are."

She knew.

"Plus it's been long, so long, since you've seen him. Shall I show you him now? His heart has grown weak, and he searches for something to make it strong again."

_Her advisors stand at the War Table. Leliana finishes her report and leaves the room while Cullen and Josephine gather their papers. He looks so tired and sad, and Evelyn wants to reach out to him and smooth away the lines on his brow. As she thinks it, Josephine does, touching his face with her hands. He looks at her, searchingly, then pulls her to him in a kiss that rocks her back into the table. She grabs him to steady herself, and he groans and presses himself against her. His hands rub slow, easy circles on her back as he releases her lips to trail kisses to her neck. Josephine asks in breathless tones, What about the Inquisitor? Cullen snarls and moves his attentions to her ear. I don't want to talk about her, he whispers. She's not here. You are._

Evelyn cried out and the image vanished. She glared at her hands through blurry tears. The anchor sparked as fury coursed through her. The self that was Evelyn Trevelyan grew again in her, dark and terrible, and she wanted to rip and tear the world apart. How dare it take this last thing from her? She'd given it everything else it wanted.

Solas called to her desperately. "It wasn't real. He took it from your mind, from your own fears. If you haven't seen it with your own eyes, it's not real. He has no power to see the world except through you."

"You would know, wouldn't you, since you gave him that power. Used that power. How did you manipulate me with it? How much of me was given by you? What parts of this life, my life, weren't supposed to be real?" she asked. She reveled in the anguish on his face.

"Please, _ma falon_, I didn't -"

"Don't call me that!" she screamed. She flexed her hands, fighting the urge to rise and slap him. "You did all of this! Those people who died, people I knew, people I never met, for your choices. For what? To raise a darkspawn god. To regain your own power, rule over an elven kingdom. Smash my kind into dust, past all memory of our existence."

His eyes snapped to hers, furious. "And what are humans to me? Enslavers. Destroyers. They take down weak, frail prey and call themselves glorious in the hunt. My people had a chance for real freedom until your kind came along. I had almost convinced them to peace. I was so close. Then came the humans. It all collapsed, and I slept in my peoples' nightmares for centuries, until they forgot who I am and called me the nightmare."

"You made them weak, Fen'Harel. You locked us away, their strength, and pretended you could replace it with your own. You were the start of nightmares," Elgar'nan said.

Uncertainty rippled across his face, and his anger drained. She fought to hold on to her rage, to hate this man who would be a god. The sadness in his eyes cut at her and bled it away.

"I woke to find Andraste waging holy war against the enslavers. I saw another chance and convinced the Elvhen to ally with her, to fight for their freedom. They died around me by the thousands but in the end they won it. I slept again, looking for kind dreams. But rather than give them back their home, she banished them to a corner of the world to rebuild a new society, rather than reclaim the true one. I watched them change into something sordid, taking the depraved parts of their history and making them holy again, worshipping the very things that kept them in chains. They called me traitor for trying to save them." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Perhaps I am."

Tears spilled onto her cheeks. "You tried to do right," she sighed. "You just did it so wrongly." She rubbed the tears away and saw green sparks. "What changed? There was no right in what you've done to the world now."

Dark misery on his face. "I was so angry. I woke into this body, and the world was ugly. The elves were a mockery of themselves. Even the Fade, the gentle place, was being sundered by power and arrogance and desire. My spirit friends, the oldest ones, were being corrupted and changed or chained to human wills. There was nothing familiar left for me, nothing to love, only cold emptiness. I needed my pack back. I needed my brothers, even if they hated me. I had the orb, but no power to open the distant doors in the Fade where they were trapped. Corypheus was the only one who would try the impossible, rip into the void to step inside, so I used him to try to turn the key. He betrayed me, stole the orb and left me to die."

"The betrayer betrayed," Elgar'nan said. "Ironic. And yet when you found Evelyn, you told her nothing of your actions. You tried to use her to fix your own errors. Always seeing people as tools, tossing them aside and picking them up as you choose without regard to anything but your own needs. At least what I offer I offer her with full disclosure."

Solas hissed. "You offer nothing but dishonesty. The cost you demand for yourself is always higher than you say. You won't stop at the Imperium, or whatever you convince her is justice. You'll take the world as payment. I won't allow her to give it to you."

She bristled. "You're not my keeper, wolf. You don't allow me to do anything."

He captured her eyes with his. "You're the only worthy human I've ever met. You understand the world and walk respectfully inside it even with the great power you wield. You know when power is enough and can leave a lure behind. You've done more good in your quick life than I've done in my thousands of years, by being right instead of only wanting it. The times you disappoint are when you think as I do instead of as yourself. You saved the world once when you touched the orb and robbed it of its completeness, but you save it still by being the spirit that you are. If you saw your own power, this vain pretender would have none over you. I'll die for that, if I must."

The last with such terrible intensity she looked away.

Elgar'nan laughed. "And so we come to it, the great tragedy. Fen'Harel_, harellan_, traitor and betrayer, who betrays those he loves with ruthless predictability. His masters locked away, his brothers abandoned, even the sweet Mythal left to scrape an existence inside a human soul. He wouldn't accept his dearest friend choosing a new body from among her people, though he himself does so at every turn."

"This body was given to me willingly. I didn't steal it with a liar's brand."

"And yet you gave yourself willingly to me once, did you not?" He ran a finger down Solas's cheek, and he flushed. "The first time you broke love's trust, but not the last. And now you love after you've already broken it. Does it hurt more or less, I wonder?" He gazed speculatively at Evelyn.

She frowned. "He doesn't love me. Not that way."

"Doesn't he, Evelyn? How interesting."

_His mouth presses against hers eagerly, and she responds with a hunger that drives him mad. His hands explore her body, and he marvels at the difference between human and elf. He shivers and arches his back when she runs her finger over his ear, tracing up to the point and then back. She smiles wickedly, and he's lost. His mouth is on her again, more urgently. He hears her whimper beneath him. Solas, she breathes, and he can think of nothing but her._

The vision stopped, and the silence was complete. The phantom hands on her left more slowly, and the enormity of the invasion hit her. Had he lived in her with Cullen? Had he seen into her dreams? She saw Cullen and Josephine in her mind's eye, mixed with her own fading feelings of pleasure, and wondered if anything could be clean again. Solas refused to look at her face. "You had no right to do that," he said. His voice was small and ashamed.

"I had every right. You're my slave, no matter how bare you become. You gave yourself to me in face and body. You came to me and asked for my marks and begged for my bed until you decided to break your oaths and lead a bloody rebellion to escape me. Now, you're in this prison and your life is mine once more. I tire of trying to convince you, Lady, so here's my new bargain. Either you open this place and we shape the world into a better one, or I continue to hurt both of you until you open it and I leave alone." He smiled. "Honestly, I'm not sure which one I would like more."


	13. Pathing

The two elves stared at her in silence, but the silence was a lie because they both lived inside of her as well. She had a crowded mind indeed, she realized, more than she'd ever dreamed. Elgar'nan smiled at the thought, but Solas showed no reaction, as if he couldn't hear her. Or wouldn't. Maybe he was fighting to keep himself out, as he'd claimed. As she absorbed this idea, she felt a gentle pressure in mind, like two hands cupping in a well and lifting out the water. Part of her separated, became a self-contained bubble in her mind. She knew instinctively it was her truthful mind, not the liar's wheel that spun underneath everything she did. It continued to turn, looking for options, but she thought carefully, high above, _Who is this?_

_Hush, little one. My strength is fading, but I can give you this protection. Listen._ And suddenly Solas was there, gentle and ancient. The thrum of desire flowed through her, as it had in the clearing with Adrel, and she understood that it was his power she felt, his desire for her that he couldn't hide. Shame followed, but there was no hesitation. He opened his thoughts to her, showed her a third choice. A third path.

_Wolves in a pen, circling, biting, scratching for a way out. The runes in front of her light up, showing her the path to their cage. She uses the anchor to tie herself to a point behind her, then walks to the illuminated door. The walls blow open at her touch and the rooms collapse into each other. The wolves fall on them, aggressive and mindless, but her anchor holds fast and pulls her back to the Rift she opens with the scream of Solas's remaining power. She falls back out of the Fade, to Thedas, alone._

No! She didn't know if she sent it, but he seemed to feel her refusal. He opened more feelings, images of Thedas overrun by frightened humans, her friends, with elven markings, rebellious elves being whipped by their new masters, the land burned and twisted by war. She floated above herself and tried not to feel the horror of his vision. His sadness pressed down on her, but he didn't try to take control. _This is not an option_, she thought fiercely. He was a liar, a traitor and an invader, but she'd placed her mark on him as surely as he had her, and her people would not die.

One last series of images, this time his own memories. Memories of her, accepting her title. Stumbling out of The Fade with haunted eyes. Speaking to Cole with acceptance. Closing the Breach, scared and defiant. Saving a wisdom spirit who'd turned demon. Asking questions in front of his paintings, concentration on her face. Sitting on the throne and balancing justice. Facing Corypheus desperately. Risking herself countless times to shield her friends. While her liar's mind turned stories for the god to listen to, the other watched in silence as Solas showed her his truth of her. She saw herself beautiful and wise, accepting the hard things that she needed to do because they were needed. He trusted her to do the same now.

She looked at him, the real him, and saw in his face that he wanted to go. To pay for his crimes, real and imagined, and especially his crimes against her. He carried too much and was ready to be alone. He would not save himself.

That decided her.

"Very well," she said. "I accept your proposal, Elgar'nan. Show me the justice you will bring to my enemies."

Her mind snapped back together, and Solas snarled, hurt and afraid. "You can't! _Ma falon_, don't allow him to leave this place." He struggled to release himself from the ropes that tied him and rubbed his skin raw. She looked at him coldly.

"I said not to call me that, traitor."

She turned to the god and held out her sparking hand. "What do I need to do?" He grinned widely and stepped towards her. His fingers crackled with magic, and he touched her hand. She felt a surge of power, like lightning, and she stumbled backwards trying to hold it.

"Thedas waits, my dear," he said, bowing to her.

She gathered herself and took a deep breath. _Mythal,_ she cried, _be ready! _Elgar'nan straightened, no trace of the genial gentleman he'd played, but she dodged past him to the place on the wall that still burned in her mind's eye. She slapped it open and heard howling. The god scrabbled backwards.

"Evelyn!" Solas was still fighting to cut himself free. "They'll kill you!"

The room started to wobble and lose its shape. A jaw snapped and snarled. She gave Solas a lazy smile. "Have you learned nothing of me, wolf? I make miracles." The anchor twisted in her hand, opened his bonds. He sprang towards her, but she was already running. A shield cut the room in half, with the god on one side and her and Solas on the other. Mythal's spirit hung in the air between them, blocking them from the slavering wolves on their other side, fading rapidly. Evelyn wasted no time and ripped open the Veil behind her. The room collapsed fully. She shoved Solas through the tear before falling after him into blessed darkness. She only had time to send the last of the power twisting behind her to close it into a smooth wall with no breaks_. The key works both ways_, she thought, then everything went black.

* * *

><p>She came to slowly, unsure of where she was. Had she been dreaming? She lay on her back on what felt like a forest floor, and she wondered if her guards were going to yell at her again for leaving her tent. A bird trilled in the distance. She rolled to her side and opened her eyes as wide as she dared. Solas lay next to her, breathing shallowly. She was angry with him, she knew. Why was she angry with him?<p>

She slipped back into unconsciousness. When she woke again, he was sitting watching her, and she remembered. He was still bloodied and bruised, but his eyes were back to their infuriating coolness. She rolled away from him and sat up as well, every muscle in her aching. Her arm that had carried the extra power felt like a bowstring ready to snap. She worked it in circles, trying to loosen it, and trying to delay what was going to happen.

"You should have left me." No emotion. Perfect serenity. Perfect calm.

Perfect bullshit.

"Yeah, you're welcome for that. Don't get too gushy, you'll embarrass me," she said. She didn't turn around.

"You should have left me. It was right."

She couldn't contain herself. She spun around. "I don't leave my people to die, Solas. Not even you."

"You left Mythal." His eyes blazed.

"She was already dying. She wanted to help you. So did I. You're alive, and you're here. Perhaps be grateful that you receive so much loyalty from those you hurt." Tears welled in her eyes, and she looked at the ground.

He studied her. "Why did you do it?"

"You were right, he needed to be stopped. He said he knew me, but he forgot that I'd heard his voice in me for months. It revealed more about him than he knew. His manipulative nature. I knew what he was trying to push me into. Even though it worked, a little." She laughed hollowly. "I was angrier than I realized. And I also know you. You're a liar, but you've never wanted power. His story was a tool to draw out my hate. Any mistakes you made would be out of incompetence, not greed."

He gave a small smile. "Yes, that seems accurate. But I meant, why did you bring me back?"

She shrugged. "You're mine. One of… one of my pack. I don't let them suffer." She went a step further. "And I'm the Inquisitor, and my judgment holds even in the Fade. You wanted punishment, but leaving you would have let you avoid it. Your punishment is to be in this world, with your mistakes, and help me fix them."

"Including what is between us?" She nodded. "Evelyn, I sinned in anger and then in fear. If I must atone for you to forgive me, it will never happen, because I can never atone. But I swear that what I've done and will do will be in service of it anyway. I regret everything you had to endure because of my arrogance, everything you'll still have to endure. But I cannot regret that it allowed me to meet you. I will never regret that." He looked at her openly, with, no more coolness, and she squeezed her mind shut against the memories of his feelings.

"I'm sorry about that, too," he said, looking away. "In fairness, I thought I would die. I wanted you to see what you are. I don't ask you to return it."

She tilted her head. She wasn't sure what she thought about him, if or when she'd be ready to forgive. But she'd had enough of anger. She remembered her own lies she told to those she loved, would continue to tell, and felt a small seed of understanding plant in her heart. And she knew in truth that she'd brought him back because she didn't want him to die alone, defeated and broken. Maybe that was enough, for now.

She stood and walked over to him. "No more bad dreams, _ma falon_," she said. She leaned down and softly kissed his forehead, then his mouth. His eyes were bright with unshed tears as he rose beside her.

* * *

><p>They walked for miles in the undergrowth, looking for anything familiar and picking through what wild food they could find. It wasn't clear how long they'd been in the Fade, but Solas guessed a week or more by their own hunger. They spoke little, and she slowly learned to tell when he was sensing her mind and when she was blocking him out. He started opening his own feelings to her more, trying to balance the scales of knowledge. She worked on closing the channels to her mind, not just for him but for anyone else who might reach through the Fade. She'd had enough of chattering inside her head.<p>

"So are you Fen'Harel or Solas now?" she asked once.

"By rights I'm the former," he answered, "but that name holds no peace for me in this world. And by rights the latter was what turned me into the monster they believed me to be, but I still prefer it to any other."

"Solas, then. We'll have to find a new path for you to be proud of."

* * *

><p>"You know my brothers can never come back, now," he said.<p>

"Yes. Without the mirror, those rooms are lost in the Fade." He sent her surprise. "Come on, I've been there physically more than anyone but you and the old magisters by now. I've picked up a few things."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Does that make you sad?"

"A little. It's hard to be the last of your kind. I wasn't a god, not as they were, but with Mythal gone I feel truly alone. Still, I know they would not be able to live in this world with you."

* * *

><p>Miles later, the sky lightening above them, she saw signs of a scouting party and hoped they were close. She hoped they hadn't left her, feared that they had. To distract herself, she asked questions.<p>

"You knew Elgar'nan was speaking to me, didn't you?"

"Yes, I recognized him in the Fade. I'd come to you to try to get you to stay away from him and the Eluvian, afraid he would sense you. Once I realized he already had, was already manipulating your thoughts, I knew the only hope was for you to come and smash it yourself. Our weakness was that as its creators, we couldn't destroy it physically, and the protections around it prevented it from any other person's destruction as well. Your anchor made you the only one who could. I caught his attention, tried to draw him away from you until you found it." He shook his head. "You weren't supposed to go through it."

"Hey, you said you like me better when I do what I want, not what you want." She felt his amusement. "Yeah, I'm going to hold that over you forever. Why didn't you tell me what you wanted, what I was up against?"

He sobered. "I thought about it for a long time. I never came up with a way to tell you that didn't reveal my own secrets. I'd hoped it wouldn't be necessary. Too much pride, I suppose. And I was running for much of the time, leading Elgar'nan's spirit away from you while staying close enough that he wouldn't give up. I thought that Flemeth would be more helpful to you, explain things in a way you would understand. I hadn't realized how much of her seeming wisdom came from Mythal."

"Well, humans can't all be me, I guess." She paused. "Why make a door that led into his prison? Why not just leave him there?"

"Hope. Mythal especially…" He opened up a thought. _It's hard to leave a friend behind._

* * *

><p>Noises from in front of them spurred her forward. She heard sounds of shouting and knew it was her friends. Only they shouted so enthusiastically. Solas lagged, hesitant. <em>Come on, wolf<em>,she thought_, don't be scared now._ They broke through the trees at the back of the camp directly in front of two perimeter soldiers, who almost fell over. After a long minute, when she knew they were considering their weapons, they saluted her and stepped aside. She sighed in relief and moved to the camp's center.

They stood around a makeshift war table, clearly arguing about her. Scraps of words came, phrases about staying to search or leaving to govern, and she was glad they hadn't finished the argument yet. And that they hadn't left immediately. She slowed suddenly, shy and afraid.

Then a new figure came into view, tall and broad and shouting even more loudly than the rest. "We're not leaving, Cassandra. She will return, and we will be waiting." Cullen. She gasped and tears filled her eyes. The sound drew their attention, and they all turned. To her relief, they were all alive and whole, and no one threw anything at her. Cassandra scowled immediately, in the way that meant she was extraordinarily happy. Varric shook his head and muttered something about the luck of Andraste. Iron Bull grinned hugely, and Sera let out a whoop. Only Dorian's face held dark shadows, remnants of anger, but even they were mixed with relief. And Cullen… after one quick glance she looked away, a coward. He sent out too much love, and she didn't deserve it.

She saw when they noticed Solas and heard them mutter to themselves in surprise. Cole had already walked forward, staring intently at his hurt face. She raised her voice. "He left us to fight, to protect all of us. He risked his life to save me. He's come back." Uncertain faces. She held her breath, hoping it was enough. Then they stepped forward, welcoming him without question, and she almost cried out at the beauty of her friends. She thought about her own actions and knew she could never live up to them. How could she have ever thought they were selfish?

_Go to him, ma falon_, she heard as he accepted their greetings and she received their hugs and back-slaps. Cullen still hadn't moved, his eyes on her face as if he didn't believe she was there. He was out of armor and looked tired and small and beautiful without it. She stepped once towards him, and then she was running. He caught her and held her. He whispered her name with his strength wrapped around her, and she felt herself mending within. She kissed him and wept, and his tears mingled with hers until there was no difference. He smelled like metal, soap and home. He set her down but didn't let go, and they stood like that for a long time. "I love you," she murmured, and he tightened his arms around her to show he'd heard.

A thought struck her, and she blurted it out without thought. "Did you sleep with Josephine while I was gone?"

He leaned back with a look of such incredulity that she laughed, clear and bright, and Varric cracked a joke about her truly romantic nature. And then they were all laughing, for reasons they could never vocalize, and she released the dark parts of her into the world and let happiness fill her with sunlight.


	14. Outcomes

They gathered in a secluded spot, and she explained everything she dared. She didn't need the mental connection to know that Solas wasn't ready to share all of his secrets with them. She hoped he would be, soon. Fortunately they accepted the altered version easily, that he had sensed things in the Fade that weren't right, and had gone off on his own to fix them. They didn't question the power of a god to reach through the Fade into her anchor. They weren't quite as easy with her, not quite forgiving, and she vowed to dedicate herself to regaining their trust in whatever ways she could.

No time like the present. When she'd finished the story, she looked each of them in the face one by one. "I'm sorry for what I did. All of the things I didn't do and say. First I was afraid you'd think me weak, and then I was afraid I would hurt you more by having you around. I know forgiveness takes time, but I beg you to stay to let me to earn it."

Varric spoke for the group. "No worries, Your Wor- I mean, Evelyn. We had a lot of time to talk over the last couple of weeks, and while some of us were of a mind to challenge you to one-on-one combat when you returned - " Cassandra and Dorian raised their hands. "- we wanted you back more than we wanted you hurt. We know you love us, in your enigmatic leader way."

"But you if you ever sic a demon on me again, boss, I'm going to give you such a hiding," Iron Bull added. "And not in the fun, sexy way. In the way that you're not going to be sitting at the War Table for a week."

* * *

><p>They'd all gone off to rest, except for Cullen. He sat next to her, their fingers entwined. He'd been touching her since she returned, as if he was afraid she'd melt away. Or run away, more likely. She rubbed her thumb across his hand in wordless apology. He leaned towards her and rested his forehead against hers.<p>

"How many lies were in that tale?" he asked. There was no judgment, only curiosity.

"As few as possible," she said.

He chuckled. "If you can't be honest in the story, at least be honest about the lies. Progress, I suppose." She placed her free hand against his face and smoothed away the worry lines.

"I don't want to do it."

"I know, love," he said. "I know. I suppose I'll have to learn to accept that there are things a woman would tell her lover that an Inquisitor can't tell her Commander. Maker knows I enjoy being both."

She sat back and smirked. "Which one do you enjoy more?" He rubbed the back of his lowered head and studied her in a way that warmed her blood. She wondered if it would be unseemly to drag him off to her tent in the middle of the day.

She stopped short. "I don't even have a tent, do I? I imagine it was pretty well destroyed."

"Good for nothing but bandages for nugs. But don't worry, I know someone who's more than willing to share." He kissed her slowly, hand stroking her sore arm. She responded, humming with pleasure when his tongue played across hers. He pulled back and grinned. "But first, I have to write a full report to Leliana and Josephine. Come with me?"

"You didn't used to be this conscientious when I was around," she said, smacking his arm.

"And I hardly ever will. But right now I'll enjoy making you wait for me, for once."

* * *

><p>They walked to his tent later, under a setting sun. She noted with amusement that it was in the same place Hawke's had been. Had he planned for this or just wanted distance from the rest? "Why did you sign your reports as Cullen instead of Knight-Commander?" she asked.<p>

He blushed. "Well, technically, I resigned." She gaped at him. He gave an embarrassed sigh. "Leliana said that under no circumstances would the Inquisition's military commander be allowed to run off on a hunt for its wayward leader, no matter how much he mooned over her, so I said she'd better find herself a new commander because I was going. It escalated from there."

She must have looked worried because he quickly added, "It's okay. Before I left, Josephine told me that they expected my resignation to last no longer than four weeks or they would send troops to drag me back and tie me to my desk."

"Josephine said that?" She laughed. "It's good I made it back, then. I'm not sure Skyhold could have lived that down."

He smiled as they stopped outside the tent. "I knew you would." He took her face in his hands and smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks. "You're Evelyn. And you're magic. I just needed to be here to see it."

Her patience snapped, and she pulled him inside. She closed the flaps and her mind as best she could. Cullen's arms snaked around her, and he trailed kisses up her neck, leaving tingles in their place. When his fingertips brushed across the smooth skin of her stomach she gasped. She spun around to face him, and he backed away, leading her to his bedroll. Her need was greater than she'd ever felt, but when she settled next to him, she could do nothing but hold him, shaking. He tucked her hair behind her ear and stared at her for a long moment. His eyes were gentle and accepting.

She felt a tear slide down her cheek. "Love me, Cullen," she said.

"Always," he replied.

That night she learned that Hawke was right. Passion was the best substitute for honesty.

* * *

><p>The next day, they packed the camp to return to Skyhold. They worked enthusiastically and quickly. Everyone was ready to get home. Hurel was joining them, joking with Varric and Sera though his eyes held grief. She hoped Solas would eventually be able to help him realize he wasn't alone. Solas spoke quietly with Cole and Cassandra, who both hovered over him like mother hens. He accepted their concern with gratitude, with few hints of his old impatience. Dorian and Iron Bull flirted affectionately and kissed when they thought no one was looking. Scout Harding was usually looking. Evelyn kissed Cullen whether anyone was looking or not.<p>

She sent the amulet and scales to Denerim for the Hero and hoped they were still what she needed. She included a note that offered her assistance at any point in the future, no questions asked, in case they weren't. Cullen watched her write it and warned her that an open-ended promise to someone like the Queen wasn't to be given lightly, but he didn't stop her from sending it.

They mounted after lunch and swung themselves onto the narrow forest paths. Scouts roamed around them like bees, leaving nothing unnoticed. She was glad. No surprises, that was her new motto. But as Iron Bull said, mottos were made to be broken.

Varric called out to her before the camp had gone from sight. "You know, Your Worship, you haven't given me a lot to work with. No one's going to believe that you faced down an ancient god in his prison cell with only your wits and a bloody elf on your side. You need to start doing more plausible things or this legend will never get off the ground. It's impossible to sell."

Solas laughed, and she felt his contentment wash through her. Or was it her own? "The more impossible it seems, the easier it will be. Haven't you noticed? Evelyn makes miracles."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: The end at last! Those who have been paying attention to the update schedule know that this was less writing than exorcism, a story that wouldn't let me rest until I finished it. I hope you enjoyed it. It's not perfect, plenty of rough edges where it twisted away in the telling, but I hope it serves as a possible ending until BioWare releases their inevitable DLC! Thanks to everyone who read, and especially those who reviewed and messaged me. The demon that was this story would have come out of my personal Fade regardless, but you made the journey a lot more fun. Hope to see you in another one soon!<em>


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